The moment I swung open the doors to the contest venue, I was greeted by a sea of contestants standing by while the staff scrambled to deal with the ongoing delays.
It was, for lack of a better term, a "garden of men."
Since the next event was the swimsuit segment, students were loitering everywhere, proudly displaying bodies they clearly took great pride in. As expected of an event born from an otome game, it was a literal buffet of top-tier handsome guys.
"SPLOOSH!"
That was the sound of Treisa’s nosebleed painting the air.
It was all well and good that she had charged in here to find Clive, but the visual stimulation was clearly more than she could handle. She had collapsed right on the spot.
"Whoa!?"
"What the—!? What just happened!?"
The contestants raised a chorus of confusion, but I couldn't blame them. I’d be bewildered too if a woman suddenly burst into a room, sprayed a nosebleed, and passed out.
"Honestly, I should have seen this coming. Back when she used to try and compete with me, she’d push herself so hard she’d start bleeding from the nose then, too."
Patricia ignored the fallen Treisa and headed straight for the back of the waiting area. She pinched her nose, her face contorted in an expression that made it very clear she found the overwhelming scent of testosterone repulsive.
"I’ve had this theory for a while now, but if you pinch your nose because of a bad smell, doesn't breathing through your mouth just funnel the scent particles directly into your system? It seems like it'd be worse, honestly."
"Now that you mention it, that does make sense... Ragna, for now, could you carry Treisa-san outside?"
"Got it."
Since Treisa was heavy in her suit of armor, I did Alicia the favor of hauling her out and dumping her in the hallway.
"Hey, Ragna! Be gentle!"
"My bad. That’s how we handle fallen soldiers back in the Brave Territory, so I just did it on autopilot."
Good grief. We had come here to find Mariana as quickly as possible, yet things had turned into quite the ordeal.
When I returned inside, Patricia had already tracked down Clive.
"Long time no see, Patricia."
"Yes, it has been a while."
The two of them hadn't had much contact since Patricia rejected Edward. Technically, Clive had been a member of Patricia’s reverse harem—part of that brainless "flower-field group" that indulged in those ridiculous antics. I expected a wave of awkwardness to wash over them, but surprisingly, nothing of the sort happened.
"That’s unexpected. Isn't this a little awkward for you two?"
"Oh? Was Brave here too?" Clive noticed Alicia and me and gave a casual response. "There’s nothing to be awkward about. There was never anything between me and this girl in the first place."
"Huh."
I could have sworn he’d been desperately trying to appeal to her just to get a taste of her handmade bento in the game, but maybe I was mistaken. Memories of him snatching a bite and claiming it was delicious surfaced in my mind.
"I only played along because Edward was so infatuated," Clive explained. "Besides, if a girl from who-knows-where hands you a handmade bento, how do you know she hasn’t laced it with poison?"
"I suppose that’s a fair point."
It was a remarkably sane reason. It seemed safe to assume that their words and actions within the game were merely adjusted for the sake of convenience—everyone except Edward, anyway.
"Besides," Clive continued, "the only kind of woman I like is a strong one with the heart to stay devoted to me and only me."
"Well, there you have it," Patricia said, nodding in agreement before planting a solid kick into my calf. Her face was dark with irritation, though she had finally stopped pinching her nose. "As long as you played along, I didn't particularly care. You were less trouble that way."
"You've finally stopped putting on an act, I see. I still haven’t forgiven you for making Treisa lose her mind, though. That rampage was a total nightmare."
"That’s because you wouldn't be clear with her, isn't it? Well, none of that matters anymore."
Maintaining that exquisite distance, Patricia asked about Mariana.
"Yeah, she was here," Clive confirmed. "I told her I’d go with her if things were going sideways, but she said Treisa would get the wrong idea and ran off to handle it herself. She vanished pretty quickly after that."
"Which way did she go? Tell us immediately."
"Wait, is the trouble really that serious? If that’s the case, I shouldn't be wasting my time participating in this contest. I'm coming with you."
"Oh? Well, you're actually useful, so fine. Come along."
"Don't give me orders."
Watching Clive brush off Patricia so easily, I felt a strange sense of kinship with him. Clive was the strongest person in the school after Edward. With proper training, he’d likely become even stronger. He wasn't obnoxious like Edward, either. I found myself thinking I could really use a male friend like him.
"So the delay in the contest isn't because of trouble with the contestants?" Alicia joined the conversation.
Despite the annulment of engagement incident, the relationship between Clive and Alicia didn't seem that bad, likely because Clive had always been suspicious of Patricia. Then again, since Edward had gone bald and taken the brunt of the social fallout, the relationships with the rest of the reverse harem members didn't seem to matter much anymore.
"Yeah, we’ve all been gathered here and kept waiting the whole time," Clive said. "I wonder who decided to hold a swimsuit judging when it isn't even summer, anyway?"
Honestly, I wondered the same thing.
"...If this is the state of things on the front lines, then does that mean the trouble is coming from further up the chain?" Alicia mused. "Looking at the state of this venue, there's no way the staff on-site would be able to delay things of their own accord, right?"
"Well, you're probably right..." I agreed. Ordinarily, you’d think the staff would be terrified of being killed by the audience if they delayed it any further.
"Was Treisa doing something?" Clive asked. "If it’s anything too contrary to the chivalric code, I’ll have a word with her."
"Um, I think it's fine, so don't worry about it," Alicia said, forcing herself to be satisfied with the explanation. She figured it was just another manifestation of Treisa's devotion.
"So the enemy is someone higher up, then?" Patricia asked.
"That would be the most likely conclusion," Alicia replied, nodding as Patricia tried to speed the conversation along. "This year's Student Council first-years have plenty of enemies."
It couldn't be helped, considering I had killed Castor in a duel and then carried out a great reform of the first-years who had all turned into a "flower-field" group. Now that Edward—who had used the full extent of his royal authority to block interference—was dead, it wouldn't be surprising if someone was plotting something. After all, in the original game's story, many of the characters cast in villainous roles were corrupt nobles.
"That's right, where is Edward?" Clive asked. "If he was having a match with Brave, shouldn't he have finished up and headed here by now? I really wanted to see the fight between you two myself."
"He's dead," Patricia said.
She dropped the news with the same casual tone one might use to report the weather. While I was busy racking my brain for a believable lie, she just went and blurted it out. She really must hate my guts. Alicia, standing next to me, was also rendered speechless.
"Huh?"
"Like I said, he fought that stupid monkey over there, and the stupid monkey just went and killed him. Right?"
"...Ah, yeah. I killed him."
Since she’d put me on the spot, I just told the truth. In that instant, the light in Clive’s eyes changed completely.