Running Away From The Hero! (Remake)

RATH 71
TL: Eevee

8. If you do it, it works. (10)

#13 Their story: A certain student council president’s story.

What is an academy?

When faced with that question, most people would think of it as a place where children that were not quite yet adults gathered to learn.

But this place is different.

“Kuaaaaghh!”
“Damn it, break through!”

The academy named Yugrasia was a battlefield where you learned how to fight with everything on the line.

Unlike normal battlefields, you didn’t die here, but our academy was the place where you learned firsthand that sometimes, death was the much more preferable option.

And to remove the hell that was the battlefield, for our the sake of our peace, we must become victorious in the imperial festival that begins tomorrow.

And because of that, we wanted to be able to clear the night study just this once…

“It’s quite tiring.”

Even as I wiped the sweat off my brows, the person who was experienced enough to not leave a single opening for us to exploit was our teacher, a professor of this school and the strongest elementalist of the gnomes, Professor Muam.

After the contractor of the Spirit King of Water, Professor Muam was beat… healed by the silver devil, he began to directly summon the Spirit King, and that was the same for today as well.

“It’s even more tiring for us, Professor.”
“Hohoho… since you’ve felt it as well you should know, student council president. That there is a reason why we cannot fall.”
“We know that as well, but today is the day where we cannot give up.”
“I understand.”

Although our relationship was that of student and teacher, we had in common the knowledge of the pain of the silver devil.

Both of us knew far too well of the circumstances of the other.

There couldn’t possibly such a bizarre student-teacher relationship anywhere else, but unfortunately we had no choice but to fight each other with our lives at stake due to the apostle of the evil god that was Professor Nicerwin.

-Children, defend if you can.

The words of the blue giant, the Spirit King of Water, began to twist the nearby space.

The power of the Spirit King of Water, lord of all water.

The power to command space with the combination of magic power and the water vapour in the air.

All summons in this space were weakened, and people who used water elementals in particular couldn’t bring them out altogether.

No one could move freely.

“Roar, thunder!”

And there was only one person who could run in like that in this state, and that was one of the god-class summoners of the first years, Hirto, the contractor of Thor, the god of thunder!

After the fear of the silver devil spurred on his development, he became able to use the god Thor’s strongest weapon as he wished.

He became able to use Mjölnir, the weapon that commanded lightning, and thanks to that he became a key player in fighting against Professor Muam.

“I’ll lead the way!”

Swinging the lightning-coated hammer, he was slowly but surely driving back the Spirit King’s area of control.

“Lightning really is annoying.”

As Mjölnir’s lightning began to encroach into Professor Muam’s water barrier, he skillfully cut off the electrocuted areas and sent it elsewhere.

Even if Hirto’s power was superior in rank and elemental compatibility to Professor Muam, Hirto was the eldest son of a swordsmanship family.

The only reason why a Hirto, someone who hadn’t even studied summoning for a year could use an unfamiliar weapon, a hammer, to fight as he was now was purely because he was a god-class summoner.

“Damn it, if I’d known this would happen I would have asked for a lightning elemental…”

I was outright unable to summon any water elementals, and other elementals were greatly weakened.

It was the worst possible situation for me where I couldn’t even summon any elementals unless they were at least a high-rank.

If I’d made a contract with a lightning elemental, the effective matchup against water elementals, I would have been more useful here.

“Muaahm! Switch!”

I heard Professor Harian’s shout from further away.

Right now, the strategy to deal with the two teachers was to fight against Professor Harian with Lady Aris as the core fighter, and Hirto and I were the key figures in fighting against Professor Muam.

“Is it the god’s shield already?”

The reason was Lady Aris’s shield, Aegis.

Unlike Professor Muam, Professor Harian’s attacks specialised in defeating many foes at once, and so using that shield made it easier to defend against her attacks.

“Yep! So hurry up and switch!”

Professor Harian’s voice was hurried.

The shield’s powers were that great, but Professor Muam had many ways to nullify the shield.

Whether it was by redirecting Aegis’s strongest attack, the petrifying curse by bending the light rays away with water, or the free manipulation of water whose attacks even Lady Aris who could consistently defend against Professor Harian’s near-invisible wind attacks had a hard time against, making it Lady Aris’s natural enemy.

We had already failed to defeat them numerous times when they joined together. As such, the rest of use tensed up and held our positions.

“Karen, block that with a few other summons nearby.”
“Got it, pres!”

Karen and a number of other people contracted to larger summons created a living wall.

They didn’t suit the current situation where multiple people were attacking one in a limited space like this, but they could at least block the path.

“It’s not easy over here either!”

Even as Professor Muam yelled, he was still looking for gaps in our defence.

“I know that! There’s no easy student in our academy!”

How should I put it… although we were acknowledged by the strongest gnome and one of the most powerful elven summoners, but we weren’t happy about that.

Because if we thought about how we went about to become acknowledged by the teachers then our tears would blur up my vision!

“Mister student council president. Making a lady wait is not befitting of a gentleman, could you help me to become a gentleman?”
“Who would doubt that Professor Muam is a gentleman? But bad boys are popular nowadays. What about following the trends?”
“I’m a bit old-fashioned, after all. I don’t particularly suit the bad boy archetype.”
“Really now?”

Extracting himself under the watch of countless students was a difficult thing to do.

Even for someone of Professor Muam’s caliber.

But as always, exceptions existed.

“I… cannot looooosseeeee!”

With a piercing scream, a giant shockwave struck our backs.

“What?”
“Kyaaaahh!”
“Get down!”

The shockwave was strong enough that some of the students were knocked down.

“Hang on! Our summons are falling!”
“Desummon! Hurry and desummon them!”

I felt the impact even from where I was, far away from the epicenter.

In that case, the giant summons that took the brunt of the blast fell over due to the sudden shockwave, and to reduce the casualties from that, Karen and a number of others were forced to desummon them.

“Muaaaaahhmmmm!”

And Professor Muam didn’t lose that opportunity.

“Don’t desummon them! Just have the people move around them!”
“Even if pres says that!”
“Or, hurry up and stop him!”

Even as we shouted we attacked with wind and earth elementals, but Professor Muam easily deflected them and marched onwards.

“Seriously, it’s hard for me as well.”
“When the power of the god of the wind, and the spirit king of water come together, we are invincible!”

Thanks to the quick actions of the other students we could stop him from getting to Professor Harian’s side, but we couldn’t stop him from summoning the mass of water beside her.

“Attack him so he can’t focus!”
“Ohhoho, how rude.”

Professor Muam laughed bitterly at the countless summons and spells being thrown at him from all directions, but none of them did any real damage.

As I thought, nothing was effective unless you were at least a god-class summoner, as the only attacks that had any effect were Hirto’s.

But as Hirto was outright being prevented from approaching Professor Muam, there was no one that could help Hirto close the distance.

“Arrriiissss!”

It was then.

With a large explosion, a thick smoke filled the corridor.

“Everyone focus, we don’t know what’s going on there! Especially!”

This was one of 100 situations that Professor Nicerwin, who was always accurate in his predictions of misery, had taught us about.

The nonsensical logic that if an enemy that fell off a cliff with wounds that should be lethal, they would eventually come back but even stronger, or in a situation where a kill was unconfirmed, if you said “is it dead?” or “is it over?” then the enemy would revive.

“If anyone dares to say is she dead, or is it over!”
“Is it over?”
“Who said that!”

But it seemed like there were still people who were not very learned.

“There’s… no way that it’s over!”
“Damn it!”

As the smoke cleared, Professor Harian appeared with a yell.

Although it looked like she had a lot of wounds, the way her blue hair still whipped around relentlessly indicated that her Incarnation still hadn’t worn off yet.

In contrast, although she had no injuries to speak of, but looking at Lady Aris’s crimson hair, already soaked through with sweat, and her bitter expression, it didn’t seem like that she’d be any good as fighting potential for a while.

“Now, it’s my turn is it, Aris?”
“No, it would be our turn.”
“What?”

And moreover, beside the evil-faced Professor Harian, Professor Muam had joined her!

When our strongest forces had to rest for a while, our enemy had all gathered together.

“Now, lil’ Muam!”
“How many times have I told you not to call me that.”
“Hahahaa! Now I can attack as much as I want!”

As her hair’s blue aura began to surround Professor Harian, the temperature of the room began to drop.

The cold and powerful god of the North Wind.

The god in charge of the most powerful wind out of the brothers that were in charge of the winds!

“Nowww, diiiiieee!”

Was it because she was drunk on power, or was it because the stresses she’d accumulated in many different ways finally exploded?

As she yelled something that should never come out of a teacher’s mouth, Professor Harian waved her hand and the blue wind started to sweep over us.

“Use the larger summons as a wall, and bring Lady Aris back to the rear!”

The best option we had right now was to let Lady Aris rest up as much as possible and let her back onto the battlefield later.

“Where do you think you’re taking my pretty Aris! If she comes back then that’s hard for me later!”

But Professor Harian knew that as well, and she began to focus her attacks in the directions of Lady Aris.

“Risen!”
“I know!”

Risen was on standby for this very situation, and with his nimble movements he just managed to spirit away Lady Aris back to the rear lines.

“Tch, no wonder I couldn’t see the vice-president, so this was why you were hiding him?”
“Indeed.”

I answered Professor Harian as she grumbled at me, but we were in a bad situation.

In the presence of a Spirit King, other elementals and spirits couldn’t use their full power.

And defending against Professor Harian’s attacks in this situation was borderline impossible for other elementalists.

And if Hirto, the only person capable of effective attacks against Professor Muam iss also shut down by Professor Harian then that’s it.

“The imperial festival is tomorrow… we can’t give up today as well!”
“Oh come on, just give up! Today’s the last day so please just give in! You kids can already win the imperial festival!”
“No, we can’t give in precisely because it’s the last day!”

If we were going to give up we would not have gathered here in this place.

We would be quietly studying in our classrooms right now.

But we did not give up, and that was why we stood in this place today.

“Prezzie. Do you think… you can beat us right now?”
“I imagine there’s a big difference between losing in combat, and simply forfeiting.”

Hirto alone can’t break through Professor Muam’s defence.

But as Lady Aris wasn’t here, there was no one who had the firepower to back Hirto up.

And just when I was thinking that our only way was to protect Hirto until Lady Aris recovered.

-Forced on the defence with that kind of resolve, how pathetic.
-What manner of being would you be?

An insanely powerful presence talked to me, a being on a different dimension to what I’d experienced so far!

-I… Hmm… This would be the best way to explain it. I am a being capable of making you victorious in this fight.
-I’ll make the contract.
-Hmm?

A familiar yet powerful presence

If I could make a contract with this elemental that was a high-rank at the very least, I could find a way to overcome this situation.

-I know it’s weird considering I’m the one that suggested the contract, but there are many other beings that create scam contracts like this.
-To overcome this situation, I could even contract a devil.
-I don’t see that as a good attitude to have.
-No, according to our academy’s teachings, if a devil tries to make a scam contract, it is a good opportunity to scam the devil instead.
-What kind of academy is this?

I wanted to say it was an academy that trained summoners, but since that was an iffy answer I stayed silent.

-Something feels weird, but very well. Since it’s the first time in a while since I’ve met someone who I liked. And I can play with El over there too. Will you make the contract?
-I will make the contract.

“Hmm? Hang on, that looks like something dangerous to us over there?”
“That’s…?”

I heard Professor Harian’s startled voice as well as seeing Professor Muam’s scowl.

“I don’t know what it is but protect the pres!”

At the same time, Risen was the quickest to catch on as he moved beside me and commanded the students that were as equally stunned as the teachers.

“We have to stop it, Professor Harian!”
“Nn? Ye, yes? But isn’t he contracting with something, Muam? A student’s improving, shouldn’t we leave him alone?”
“The moment he makes a contract with that, we’re definitely going to lose!”
“Re, really?!”

As even Professor Muam who was on the defence began to attack, but thanks to the other students who literally put their bodies on the line for me, I succeeded in contracting that being.

-Kahahahaha, Ellie, I’m here!
-Damn it, why are you!
-There were a lot of kings that wanted to contract with this kiddo here. But thanks to you, I became the one he wanted to contract the most.

A being that could appear even when he wasn’t asked to.

A giant body that didn’t lose to the Spirit King of Water.

And the powerful lightning that ran down along his body!

-It’s my first time out in a thousand years, El! You’re going to make it fun for me, right?
-Damn it, the one with few contractors, the Spirit King of Lightning, Lionel! This will be a completely a different fight up to now!
-Kahaha! Contractor! What is your first request!

My first request? That was already a given.

“O lord of lightning, defeat our enemies, and grant us victory.

It was the moment that an event sparse even throughout the history of the continent, a battle between Spirit Kings unfolded in Yugrasia.