Chapter 9 - The Princess' Secret
Meanwhile, during the ceremony within the great hall, Ryan returned to his place among the students with a quiet frown as they gazed at him with renewed admiration.
That damn snake... I knew there was somethin’ fishy about her since she first showed up.
Glaring subtly at the princess from behind everyone else, he recalled the contents of the Status he had glimpsed just moments prior.
〔Status〕
Eleanor Astavau Seronia
Class : Magic Enchanter
Level 23
Race : Human
Age : 16
Title : 「Royalty」
Health Points (HP) : 603 / 603
Mana Points (MP) : 1,671 / 1,671
Strength : 37
Endurance : 43
Agility : 67
Dexterity : 67
Magic : 135
Wisdom : 174
Luck : 155
Titles : 「Royalty」, 「Beginner Magician」, 「Apprentice Magician」, 「Beginner Enchanter」, 「Goblin Killer」, 「Apprentice Enchanter」, 「Monster Killer」
Passive Skills : 「Charisma [Lv.4]」, 「MP Consumption Down [Lv.3]」, 「Automatic MP Recovery [Lv.2]」
Active Skills : 「Power Burst [Lv.1]」
Combat Skills : 「Staff Mastery [Lv.1]」, 「Wand Mastery [Lv.2]」
Magic Skills : 「Magic Sense [Lv.2]」, 「Light Ball [Lv.2]」, 「Water Ball [Lv.2]」, 「Earth Rise [Lv.1]」, 「Frost Bolt [Lv.1]」, 「Fire Bolt [Lv.1]」, 「Air Gust [Lv.1]」, 「Enchantment Sensing [Lv.5]」, 「Enchant Weapon [Lv.3]」, 「Enchant Armour [Lv.3]」, 「Charm [Lv.3]」
Resistance Skills : 「Pain Tolerance [Lv.1]」, 「Trauma Resistance [Lv.1]」
Perception Skills : 「Memorisation [Lv.3]」, 「Concentration [Lv.3]」, 「Charting [Lv.2]」
Communication Skills : 「Seronian Language Comprehension [Lv.MAX]」, 「Kalypite Language Comprehension [Lv.6]」, 「Kurvstidian Language Comprehension [Lv.2]」
Sneaking a look at other peoples’ Status was the ability of one of Ryan’s two innate Unique Skills, Great Sage’s Eyes, but it was the first time he had been able to use it on the princess because of the close proximity requirement.
Pinching his eyes shut, the image remained in his mind; she was standing too far away now so he couldn’t see it any longer, but he couldn’t forget it.
A skill called Charm.
“...”
As it was listed under Magic Skills, and considering that the princess’ Class was something called 'Magic Enchanter', it could be surmised that she had used it to so effortlessly sway the hearts of his classmates. Not only that but her Passive Skill, Charisma, was sure to have played a part in it, too.
Ryan had previously wondered why he felt so peculiar and in an oddly upbeat mood whenever he saw her, but now it made perfect sense. Strangely enough, now that he was precisely aware of the cause, those feelings seem to have disappeared entirely.
It only works on the unaware, huh...
Opening his eyes to a slit, he glanced around at his compatriots’ expressions.
Some of ‘em are already too far gone, but ain’t there a couple’a tough nuts still?
As he examined them all, he found that there were, in reality, quite a few people who seemed able to naturally resist the bewitchment. It was then that he noticed.
...Hol’ on a second.
Something―or rather, someone―was missing.
Jae ain’t here or somethin’? Where’d that guy fuck off to, hm...?
Realising that one of the knights standing guard behind him by the door had also disappeared, he realised they must have taken a temporary absence somewhere.
Oh, off to piss, huh... Heh, or maybe he’s spillin’ guts everywhere.
Leaving the presumption at that and pushing it no further, he resumed the business he had started before; taking notes about everyone who stepped up to take the ranking ceremony. They weren’t merely mental notes, however.
Kaitlyn, Flash Duellist... B-rank? Melee fighter with short-range teleportation. Hmm...
Using the second of his Unique Skills, Great Sage’s Records, Ryan was able to not only discover the more thorough details of what lies in a person’s Status but also keep registries of all his prior gathered information.
It’d be good to have more than one frontline. Somethin’ like teleportation is such a versatile ability that it’s bound to come in handy in the future, too. I’ll mark her as... High priority, for now.
Like this, he stood back and measured the worth of all his classmates that took the stand.
At some point, a knight came desperately towards the princess and whispered a report into her ear, but no one was able to hear her reply as she swiftly continued with the ceremony as if nothing had happened.
Eventually, the Summoned Hero’s Official Ranking Ceremony came to an end.
----------------------------------------
Lunchtime.
As was rather often, Ryan thought about the current situation with a deep frown on his face as he ate in his assigned room.
Seriously, I haven’t seen that guy since the start of the day. The hell happened to him?
He was, of course, wondering about Jae. And he wasn’t the only one.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
At this point, many were gossiping about the boy’s sudden disappearance. There were, of course, many theories that sprouted, but in the end, all they knew was that he never had his rank revealed―having simply vanished before anyone even realised it, they were now curious as to where he was and what his rank was.
The only people who knew the truth of the situation as it happened were Eleanor and a certain squad of knights, as well as the missing person himself. Needless to say, the palace executives had also been made fully aware of what had occurred after the fact, but it was indeed a great mystery for the students who had, all of a sudden, lost one of their own without even realising it.
Many proposed a story very close to the truth; that he fled from the palace to escape death.
It was a natural theory to arise when they all watched their teacher die in front of them, but they all likewise remembered what happened just after, during Chris’ confrontation―that is, the princess’ explanation of the incident.
She had explained that Mr Greene was only executed on the spot for being corrupt, and so, providing they followed along without resistance, the rest of them had nothing to worry about.
Even if she didn’t give such an explanation, they all knew without being told that running away would result in their misfortune. Being someone who also saw them mercilessly cut down Greene, Jae surely would have known that if he ran, he would’ve been captured and perhaps even unhesitatingly killed.
Thus, there must have been something forcing him to escape; so much so that he was willing to risk such a brutal outcome.
The only reason they could think of for him to risk doing such a thing was that Jae, too, was corrupt.
After all, if Jae was truly corrupt, and had he somehow known that he was corrupt prior to the ranking ceremony, then the instant Green was executed, he would have immediately realised he was next on the chopping block.
In any case, the story that went something along these lines was the current common consensus among the class, and although they wanted to believe in the person who was their fellow classmate, the situation as a whole was already hard enough to believe as is.
Ryan, on the other hand, held a different assumption from everyone else.
Was it ‘cause of what I said? Ain’t no way...
He furrowed his brows. Having conjured up a few different theories and plausibilities, many were similar to those of the others. Just like them, however, he couldn’t come up with anything by himself as concrete as what the rest of the class had already decided on.
Nevertheless, if there was one thing that made him more confident in believing in himself rather than the others, it was that Ryan knew something nobody else in the class knew.
It must be related to that ‘curse’.
He recalled the status he stole a glance at yesterday evening.
〔Status〕
Name: Jae Kang [Cursed]
Class : No Available Classes
Level 1
Race : Human
Age : 16
Title : 「Cursed by a God」
Trait : 「Steadfast Mind」
Distributable Points: 0
Health Points (HP) : 317 / 317
Mana Points (MP) : 100 / 100
Strength: 17
Endurance: 17
Agility: 18
Dexterity: 17
Magic: 20
Wisdom: 0
Luck: ―
Titles : 「Cursed by a God」, 「World Traveller」
Resistance Skills : 「Mental Abnormal Status Nullification [Lv.MAX]」
Communication Skills : 「Seronian Language Comprehension [Lv.MAX]」
It was absolutely suspicious.
First of all, Jae was the sole person in the entire class with a 'curse' instead of a 'blessing', as well as the only person with evidently no Luck attribute value. Furthermore, whilst everyone else in the class possessed the Divine Protection of a God title without exception, all he had was Cursed by a God.
Even without the Gods' blessing, though, Jae could very well still be considered a high-ranking Hero because of how the ranking plate seemed to work. After the ceremony, the princess briefly explained the ranking system to work something like this:
Firstly, those with nothing special about them were ranked D or C depending on their individual latent potential judged by the plate.
Secondly, those with either uniquely high latent potential, a trait, a Unique Skill, a unique title, or a starting class were all ranked B or A, with the determining difference being their overall power potential.
And finally, only those with 5/5 of those parameters―or at the very least a suitable combination of 4/5―would be ranked as S-class.
By those standards, as he possessed a trait, a Unique Skill and a unique title, Jae should have been classified as B-rank at the very minimum, at least theoretically.
Another peculiarity of his Status was the 'Distributable Points' section. This was something no one else in the class had seen in their Status, so if this was included alongside the above items, Jae could very well have been the class’ third Special-rank.
Either way, as things currently stood, they would never know.
An anomaly...?
There were many things wrong with Jae’s Status and that made him an extreme outlier. Ryan was almost certain that Jae knew this and thought the best course of action would be to escape the palace. Greene's death likely only solidified that belief.
I mean, shit, if I was a ‘cursed hero’, I’d prolly wanna get the hell outta dodge, too. We already saw how they treated Teach and from what I saw yesterday, that guy didn't even have anythin' outta the ordinary in his Status. If they then discovered someone who actually was cursed, fuck knows what they would’ve done to the guy.
Slowly and silently, Ryan got up and walked over to the door of his room.
Well, no use in thinkin’ too hard ‘bout it right now. I’ll make sure to find out more later.
Pull.
Clatter, thud-!
“Woah...!”
“Agh!?”
He opened the door swiftly, resulting in two people falling down from the other side. The two were fellow classmates Nicolas Baum and Kaitlyn Winter.
“...”
His eyes lingered on the two as he recalled both of their ranks being B. They also happened to be people he listed as ‘high priority’ for their potential usefulness.
“Oi. Whaddaya want?” He brusquely asked, not wanting to hear how long they had been camped pressing against his door. The two stared at him dumbfoundedly for a few seconds before Kaitlyn spoke out first.
“A-ahem. We thought we might be able to join your party...?”
Followed quickly by Nicolas, “That’s right! That’s what we wanted to ask! We weren't eavesdropping, I swear...!”
"The hell're you on about?”
Party? The shit?
The two of them wore perplexed faces for a moment as they got up off the floor before Kaitlyn realised what was wrong and answered.
“Oh, right! Ryan, you’re not aware because you returned immediately to your room but apparently we’ll be starting our Hero training soon.”
“Yeah. Uh, they said it’s recommended that we make groups of up to six people called a ‘party’. You’re one of the class's two S-ranks, so we wanted to ask if you’d be up for joining us.”
“There were quite a few others who wanted to join as well, but I think they got cold feet as soon as they realised they might be stuck in the same group as you for the rest of their lives, so everyone bailed on the way here except us. Still, I think we can bring enough value by ourselves.”
...What? Those shitters... No, they stole my idea of creating a group...? Ah. I s’pose it makes recruitin’ less of a pain in the ass.
After staring blankly at the two classmates who oh-so-conveniently fed themselves to him like rabbits hopping straight into the lion’s maw, Ryan smirked.
“Well now, if ya wanted to be my underlings so badly, ya should’ve just said so!”
Their faces paled.
“Wait, what? No, that’s not what we meant by--“
“Sure thing, I permit you guys to join my party. Then, your first job as my new slaves is to gather some info.”
His feigned cheerfulness quickly vanished.
”Information?”
“Yeah. So, get to it.”
""...?""
It’s not just that damn snake princess that’s gettin’ on my nerves; this whole country is startin’ to piss me off. They haven’t given me any of the rewards they promised yet, but the moment they do, I’m fuckin’ right off.
Glancing at his two classmates-- or rather, party members who whispered trepidatiously to each other in front of him, Ryan proceeded to put an arm around each of their shoulders and pulled them in to give them their first orders as greenhorn grunts.
“Listen up.”
For now, I’ll just use these two to prepare.
“Yes?”
“Y-yessir!”
“First of all, you,” He rotated his head to the left to look at Nicolas. “Use ya Unique Skill to sneak into restricted areas of the palace and obtain as much info as possible. Specifically, see if ya can get anythin' about that guy's disappearance. Also, use paper to note everythin' down."
“'That guy'...? Oh, you mean Jae? Sure... Wait, how'd you know my Unique Skill was--“
“Do it. Or will you disobey?”
“Ye-yes! I mean, no, I won’t! Wait, no! I’ll do as you say!”
Turning to the right, he continued. “And Kait.”
“Yes.”
“Your focus is to level up. It’ll prolly be impossible for a while, so just wait ‘til then... Ah, no. Actually, follow me.“
“?? Alright...”
Himself as the commander, Kaitlyn as the vanguard and Nicolas as the rogue; having established a basic rookie party in the meantime, Ryan thought he should try “recruiting” other potential members he had his eye on.