At Hell's Gate - Part 1

I won.

I really won.

It took most of my tricks and more effort than I wanted, but I won.

Even as I stared at the knocked down swordsman, that didn’t sink in completely. For a little while, I even expected him to slowly get up for a second round. That’s the sort of thing protagonists do. But nothing happened. Nothing other than the director’s call.

“The judgement is over!” Maybe because the announcer was too shocked to say anything, the director took his referee position a bit seriously and ended the match. “Heaven's answer is such: Roselia Perchant Desperoux is innocent. Go back to your tasks, everyone.”

He oddly gave me a nod and a smile before turning away to leave. Add that to the somewhat supportive reaction during that first meeting, and I would find him friendly. That doesn’t match with my notes, though. In my notes, he’s a person you don’t want to stay too close to unless necessary. Better safe than sorry.

I’ll thank him for leaving the barrier up while leaving, at least. The jeering and constant noise of things striking at it would be somewhat troubling if he hadn't. I’m not in condition to waste energy keeping a barrier up right now.

Turning a bit to the side and seeing Felicia’s glare as she got up and hurried to leave the VIP stands wasn’t a good look either. She was probably coming down to check on Graham. The other members of her party left after, but there was a missing one already. I suppose she would rush first, so that should be fine.

Either way, I could use the situation to already negotiate my reparations, but that does feel a bit dangerous. It’s better if their whole group stays focused and close together. All is working pretty well right now anyway. The only worrying bit was that the timings were wrong.

“Something should’ve happened already…” I muttered while turning towards the exit and started to walk off. “Did he give up since I didn’t take the second deal?”

From the notes, there were a few options of what would happen after Roselia’s judgement, even if they had some commonalities. Every time, she would bring an outsider as champion, who would then push the Pretender Knight, but lose in the end.

At that moment, an explosion would draw the attention of the people in the arena and it would be known that a Hell Gate opened in the Glass Castle.

Well, calling it a ‘Hell Gate’ is a bit incorrect, but that’s the name I have. It’s more like an entity than an object, and not exactly related to hell, I think.

Either way, the director is supposed to deal with that while only the smaller demons attack the normal folk. He’s the only one capable of closing one at this point of the story, so that’s the obvious result.

From there, he would rush to fight the attackers in the main building and the others would be told to hide in the colosseum. Since most first and second year students were in the colosseum, that would be decently safe, especially with Graham and his party defending the location.

The problem is that the party would be split at the start of the event and that would end up causing unrecoverable damage.

Defending the colosseum is considered the first fight out of the tutorial in my notes. It’s supposed to feed into the princess’ support and ensure Roselia is kicked out. The fainted champion vanishes during it, though, and no connection between her and the attack are ever found.

But as I wondered about this and walked out the arena and into the exit tunnel opposite to the one I used to enter, a visitor blocked my way out the tunnel and into the corridor.

“Roselia…” The sister of my defeated opponent stood in front of me, and for some reason, she was alone. “I have some questions for you.”

Talking to her alone right now isn’t ideal. As I said before, Seline is a righteous busybody. Before getting replaced, she’s also supposed to be the ‘information NPC’, whatever that means, which matches with her investigating around. She’s very intent on finding information and helping her brother.

In proper condition, I believe I can keep up with her probing without much problem, but I’m pretty tired right now. At the same time, I can’t risk her moving away from the group. Not until I’m sure nothing is going to happen anymore.

“Shouldn’t you go check on your brother? I did quite a number on him.” I put on a confident outlook and tried to wave her away. “They didn’t let me finish him off, but I made sure his barrier wouldn’t work.”

“Did you hurt your hand with all that?” She ignored my question and instead stared at my right arm. Her voice was more inquisitive than worried, but the question itself made me almost click my tongue. Getting my trick uncovered quickly wasn’t good.

But she was right. Since I had void steel on my gauntlet, I couldn’t ever cover my right hand in a barrier. Controlling it perfectly enough to avoid the plates completely is way too hard for me, so I had to leave the whole hand unprotected. After that, holding the sword and then being thrown around all damaged it. I can’t say anything broke, but it’s hurting a fair bit.

Reacting to the question would be a giveaway, though. It’s impossible Seline is sure of what I used there right now. If she was, Graham would know about it before our duel and I probably would’ve lost.

No way to get a surprise attack on someone expecting it.

“Your brother’s face isn’t hard enough for that.” I tried to dismiss the question. “But it’s very cute of you to be worried about me.”

Calling her cute made Seline grimace, but she recovered almost right away.

“If that’s how you want, then I’ll be direct…” She sneakily moved one hand to the wand at her back while assuming she had my attention, and then asked something I just couldn’t find a way to answer. “Are you really Roselia Desperoux?”

“I never took you as such a philosophical person. Especially when the princess already asked me something similar.” I answered, almost by reflex, but Seline’s expression made it feel like she didn’t like the joke or the explanations. It also confirmed that she was the one who made Felicia move in that odd way before. So, without much other option, I shrugged and gave a more serious answer. “Look, there’s only one Roselia around. I do get why you’re asking, but be logical here. Who else would I be?”

“That’s what I would like to know. The Roselia I know isn’t some quiet studious person who can fight her own battles.” She declared while still ready to pick a fight, but I found the word choice to be quite flattering. “You’re not that. I believe people can change and you convinced Your Highness that you could, but it’s too much. No one can change this much in a week, so… Who are you?”

A bit too clever to my taste. Not a bad trait, but it’s troublesome to deal with. I would rather just stay far away and vaguely give them some support. The main characters are the ones who should be dealing with the problems, not the tutorial villain. It’s a problem that she got away from the group right now, though, so I’ll have to adapt some things first.

“What’s your current hypothesis? Felicia spoke about large scale spells, but I’m sure you can figure out that none happened.” I start to move around a bit while talking, slowly making my way back into the tunnel and towards the arena. “Or, actually, can I assume you don’t have a good one going yet? You threw all the good ones you had at the princess, but she disproved them already. Still, you couldn’t accept it and decided to try one more time. No point in being this vague when asking me otherwise.”

Seline didn’t answer me this time. Some of my guesses did seem to be close to what she had in mind, but it wasn’t much of a difference. To be completely honest, I couldn’t answer her question at all. As I said, that’s too philosophical, but not for the reasons Seline may think I asked.

Not something to worry about right now anyway.

“Fine, I’ll be just honest then…” I sighed and came up with something vaguely logical-sounding and close enough to the truth to be believable. “I just got tired. Following family rules and acting noble is a massive pain, so I stopped caring. There’s no other Roselia around, it’s just me and I don’t want to keep up with what I was doing before.”

“What are you-”

“Also, I do have to apologize properly to you and your brother. I just planned to let things calm down more and there are reasons I can’t be too public about saying this.” I interrupted her by continuing to talk nonstop until we were at the opposite mouth of the tunnel than the one we started at. “There’s things people expect from a duke’s daughter, you see? I won’t pretend that was necessary or that I didn’t have a choice, but that sort of thing isn’t something I’ll be doing anymore.”

In a way, it was both necessary and I didn’t have a choice on the matter, but that’s assuming there are two Roselias around. Makes me feel as if I’m pretending to not be at fault for something I did, so I don’t like it. I’d rather assume both ‘me’ are the same thing, just with a mental breakdown and some magical oddities to split us.

Seline was still suspicious, but my words were enough to make her unsure on how to proceed. Enough so that someone else could interrupt the conversation now that we were close enough to the arena to be seen.

“What you think you’re doing, Roselia!” An angry Felicia shouted at me from far into the arena. She was getting Graham up as he seemed to have just recovered from the punch, but seeing me back at the tunnel did draw her attention away. “Don’t think that I’m letting you get close to them just because you managed to win this.”

Her bodyguard was nearby, but oddly enough, Emma didn’t seem to be that worried about me being close to Seline. She was just watching the situation while protecting the princess’ back.

More people were entering the grounds from the other tunnel too. A bit late since they didn’t rush so much, but the whole party would be here soon. Noticing we had returned to the arena did make the black-haired girl close to me panic a bit and hurry to try explaining the situation, but it was unneeded. I can deescalate the situation well enough to not need it.

“Don’t worry, Your Highness, I’m already leav-” But before I could finish my sentence or walk inside the arena again, time froze.

Not in reality, I wouldn’t notice this sort of magic being used, but everything felt as if it was slowing down. All because I saw a known oval object flying down from the stands and towards the middle of the arena.

Now I get it.

It took longer for something to happen because the target location changed.

That does make sense.

Reaching my backup plan will be very troublesome from here…

I internally nodded at the situation during the singular moment between noticing the gem-encrusted egg and seeing it break into pieces after hitting the ground. Then, in the next instant, I turned around in a hurry and pulled Seline to the ground before anything could happen.

“Get down!”