Chapter 58: Their Respective Roles

Several weeks have passed since our first meeting.

We would gather in the Unit Room after school and spend every day training for the ‘Inter-School Match Bifrost’.

When that happens, you inevitably come to understand your team members’ fighting styles and personalities.

We are four people—Rizlet, Liseclair, Ann, and Lumiel—who aren’t in the same dorm and weren’t on the same team during the leader decision match, but while training, various things became clear.

Rizlet, living up to being the Second Princess of the Mismede Kingdom, has high pride and furthermore, a low boiling point.

If you provoke her, she immediately gets defensive, and if you flatter her, she immediately gets carried away. To put it bluntly, she’s an easy mark.

It gives me the chills to think what if she had become the Commander. What kind of reckless strategies would she have forced through?

Well, it’s not just that; she also seems to be quite a sore loser and a hard worker. She can be narrow-minded and stingy, though. She acts like an intellectual type, but I see her core as the same kind of muscle-brain as Hatoba.

Surprisingly, Liseclair was an adventurer like me. To be precise, she was registered as an adventurer.

Liseclair’s parents seem to be quite famous adventurers, and she apparently registered at age ten upon their recommendation. Her rank is Green, which is also the same as mine. Even though I registered way before she did.

Well, I only really did adventurer activities when I was strapped for cash…

It seems my feeling that she had the muscle build of an adventurer when I coincidentally saw her for the first time wasn’t mistaken.

Personality-wise, she’s the silent type. She mostly only speaks when necessary. It doesn’t seem like she dislikes people, though. Even among silent types, she’s a different type from Pearl.

Ann, the silver-haired twintail, seems to be born into the Viscount Shelfus family, nobles of the Felsen Magic Kingdom.

Born into a mage lineage of the Magic Kingdom, Ann has aptitude in three attributes: Wind, Earth, and Light, and her knowledge regarding magic is outstandingly high.

She can accelerate stones and rocks created with the Earth attribute using the Wind attribute and hurl them, or create walls with the Earth attribute to defend.

Like Lirisha, she pilots a Mystic Frame machine, but it seems she’s making it lean towards magic combat rather than bombardment combat.

I wonder if she’s aiming in the same direction as Sharon-senpai, who is called the [Witch of the Azure Storm]. She might eventually start using [Floating Swords] ‘Fragarach’ too.

Personality-wise, she’s mild-mannered and feels exactly like a noble young lady.

And then there’s the girl named Lumiel, from the Holy Tree Kingdom of Aizen…

『Annihilation!』

A virtual enemy Cavalry was crushed flat from the top of its head by the giant war mace swung down by Lumiel’s red Titan Frame machine, ‘Goliath’. Scary…!

『All who stand in the way in the name of the Spirits shall be annihilated!』

High-pitched laughter that sounded a bit crazy, “Ahahahaha!”, could be heard.

This girl Lumiel is, how should I put it, weird.

I thought she was a smiling, semi-long-haired, placid girl, but the moment she boarded her Frame Gear, her personality completely changed. Her rampaging is enough to make you call her a Berserker.

Swinging the war maces in both hands around, she crushes enemies one after another. She never falls back even if she takes some damage. She just single-mindedly chases enemies and swings down her war maces. Ultimately, she rampaged until she couldn’t move anymore and ceased functioning just like that.

During the leader match, there were two Titan Frames on Rizlet’s team, Liseclair and Lumiel, but I completely understood why Lumiel wasn’t made the Crown’s guard.

The Crown would be shattered easily with that. If anything, she might destroy it.

Lumiel’s homeland, the Holy Tree Kingdom of Aizen, is a newly risen nation founded within the last hundred years.

Originally, there was a country called Eisengard there, but it apparently touched a taboo and was destroyed during the era of the First Sovereign King.

I heard it was temporarily abhorred as a cursed, defiled land, but the First Sovereign King planted a Holy Tree in the northern part of that land, and thereby succeeded in purifying it.

Since then, the land has flourished as a sacred place where spirits gather, and eventually, as the ‘Holy Tree Kingdom of Aizen’ that worships spirits, it has now become a spirit-worshiping nation alongside the Holy Kingdom of Arent.

When I finished training and exited the Frame Unit, Lumiel had just gotten out too.

“Nero-san! That covering fire earlier was wonderful! As expected of one who has received the divine protection of the Spirits!”

“Thanks for that…”

At Lumiel looking at me with sparkling eyes, I showed an indescribable expression. I haven’t received any divine protection, though…

Somehow, Lumiel seems to have taken a liking to me. The reason is that I noticed the spirit on her shoulder.

I totally thought Lumiel could see it too, and since she’s from a spirit-worshiping country, I thought she was a spirit user.

“You can see the Spirits?!”

From there, it was a parade of questions. Apparently, Lumiel is liked by this spirit, but her magic capacity is low, and she couldn’t see it.

I believe it should be possible to see them once you make a contract with a spirit, but if you can’t firmly feel their presence, making a contract with a spirit is apparently difficult.

So when I explained what kind of appearance the spirit had and how it was attached to her, Lumiel used the Spirit Stone she had and made a contract in the blink of an eye.

The lower fire spirit named ‘Pyro’ happily circled around Lumiel, and Lumiel thanked me many times.

Since then, she’s taken a liking to me like this, but I wish she’d spare me from bringing it into spirit talk whenever she finds an opening…

I thought she’d hit it off with Pienetta from the Holy Kingdom of Arent, but Pienetta didn’t seem very interested in spirit worship. As a result, the spearhead turned to me, and I ended up having to listen to long talks about spirits.

Somehow managing to shake Lumiel off and return to the dorm, I am currently talking about such things while eating dinner with everyone in the cafeteria.

“You can see spirits too, Nero…”

“I can see them too, but not that clearly. There is also a theory that having aptitude for many magics makes it easier to see them, so I don’t think it’s strange if Nero-san can see them.”

When Sherry said that as if a little exasperated, Lirisha explained it as if saying ‘It’s no big deal’, in a way that I couldn’t tell if she was backing me up or dissing me.

Well, it’s not like I can see them 24/7 either. It’s just to the extent that I feel them suddenly and can see them if I focus.

“Can’t you use Spirit Magic, Nero?”

“Hmm… it’s not that I can’t, but it becomes a hassle so I don’t use it.”

When I answered Sherry’s question like that, she tilted her head, wondering what I meant.

“Spirit Magic is basically magic where you form a friendship with a spirit and borrow its power. So if you ask a spirit you have no intention of contracting with, there’s a possibility they’ll become weirdly attached to you.”

Lirisha explained my doubts to Sherry in my stead.

That’s right. If you can see spirits and recklessly borrow their power, they mistakenly think you’re going to contract with them.

According to Master, it’s like ‘acting like a boyfriend when you’re not even dating’.

When this happens, it becomes truly a hassle; they get overly attached, intimidate the surrounding spirits that approach, and if it gets bad, they start doing things that are harmful to you.

If that happens, in the worst case, you have to erase that spirit, so I choose not to use Spirit Magic. Or rather, Master forbade me.

Lumiel, who contracted with the fire spirit, had become able to clad her war maces in flames by borrowing the spirit’s power.

Although it’s a power with little use in Frame Gear combat, she doesn’t seem to care. It’s a convenient power against giant beasts and such, after all.

“Hmm… This way is better, after all…”

Ignoring our chatter, Carrol had been fiddling with her smartphone while eating dinner for a while, thinking about the role positions of the representative members.

The nine regular members of the ‘Inter-School Match’ each have a general role.

The ‘Commander’, who oversees the whole and directs everyone.

The ‘Guardian’, who escorts the Crown and protects it from enemy attacks.

The ‘Scout’, who probes enemy movements and terrain information and disrupts the opponent.

The ‘Striker’, who mainly attacks the enemy and aims for the Crown, the ‘Freelancer’, who moves around the battlefield adapting to circumstances, acting freely to attack or defend, etc.

She seems to be struggling with how many people to assign to each role.

Last year’s ‘School’ apparently had a super-aggressive formation of 1 ‘Guardian’, 1 ‘Commander’, 0 ‘Scouts’, 5 ‘Strikers’, and 2 ‘Freelancers’, so how to balance it is where the Commander shows their skill.

Of these, it’s decided that the ‘Commander’ is Carrol and the ‘Guardian’ is Liseclair.

The ‘Guardian’ is usually handled by Titan Frames, but because Lumiel has that kind of personality, it feels like it inevitably went to Liseclair.

Carrol struggled a lot from there, but ultimately assigned Lumiel, Hatoba, and Rizlet as ‘Strikers’, Lirisha, Koto, and Pearl as ‘Freelancers’, and I seem to have settled into the role of ‘Scout’. It’s a balanced formation very much like Carrol.

‘Scout’, huh… Well, I don’t mind.

“Nero is agile and suited for swiftly probing enemy territory, I think. You can escape with [Zero Gravity] in an emergency, and even if you run into their scout, you have the power to defeat them alone.”

Well, I don’t feel bad being told that.

But when you say scout, you have to avoid being found by the opponent, so jamming-type equipment becomes necessary, and conversely, you have to search for enemies, so sensor-type equipment becomes necessary too, you know?

“I’m consulting Lara about that around there, so we can prepare good things for a first-year. It seems we can even get hand-me-downs from seniors.”

I see. In that case, the rest depends on how I use it.

Probe the enemy camp without being found, sometimes disrupt them, escape from the spot, and survive.

I don’t have confidence in ‘without being found’, but disruption and escape should be fine, right?

If anything, if I just crush the opponent’s scout, no information about us will cross over to them.

“I’ll aim to be the first one to strike, then.”

“…Wait. You’re misunderstanding something.”

Huh?