"...Yeah, I killed him."
Since the question had been tossed at me so abruptly, I gave him an honest answer.
In an instant, the light in Clive's eyes shifted. Still in his swimwear, he lunged, aiming a finger-thrust right for my eyes.
"Wait, just listen for a second," I said, catching his vicious strike with my hand to defend myself.
"If that’s the truth, then I have to kill you."
"Clive!"
"Don't stop me, Alicia. We still have the matter with Castor, don't we? I assume he challenged you with everything he had, and you answered in kind."
He was spot on.
Clive let out a sigh, but he wasn't backing down. "Even so, he was the man I swore my loyalty to. What kind of man would I be if I just let this go?"
His eyes were dead serious. Even if I didn't particularly want to fight right now, I had to accept. If someone was willing to stake everything on a challenge, it was my duty to face them.
"...Fine."
"Appreciate it," Clive said with a smirk.
"Ragna!"
"I fought Edward with everything I had." Alicia tried to stop us, but a duel is a fair thing. That's the aesthetic. "So I'll take on Clive as well—Gah!?!?"
A sudden, catastrophic impact exploded between my legs.
I collapsed into a heap, nearly blacking out. As I doubled over, I looked back to see Patricia casually shaking out her foot. She was looking down at me as if I were a piece of filth.
"I don't have time to stand around watching some sweaty, macho melodrama," she said.
This... this woman! She was the one who dropped the bombshell to incite him in the first place, and now she pulls this?
"Ugh... she really went for it... No mercy..."
"I don't know what they were talking about, but that was brutal."
"Was there always a student like that? Taking him down in one hit..."
The male students watching from the sidelines were all clutching their own groins, faces pale and trembling.
"You brat, you—"
"Oh my, are you wondering why that got through?" Patricia asked with a smirk as I remained hunched over. "Hmph. I can see right through your magic. Take this as a lesson and don't look down on me, alright? Ah, that felt refreshing."
She’d turned everything into a total mess and then started spouting nonsense. She was the worst—just pure, concentrated garbage. Who decided that the enemy of my enemy was my friend? Nobody, that's who. People just tell themselves that when it's convenient.
The enemy of my enemy is just another enemy. Being careless around this woman was dangerous.
"If that girl isn't here, I'm done with this place. Questioning people is too tedious, so let's head straight to the source of the trouble."
Watching her walk away laughing, I swore a silent oath that I would absolutely get her back for this.
"R-Ragna, are you okay? I mean... for you to react like that... it must be incredibly painful, right?"
"I was careless. She hit me with an attack that bypassed my barrier."
I gave Alicia a strained answer. I didn't care if she was a Spirit or whatever, but that woman's magic power was so elusive it was infuriating. If she could deliver an impact directly through my defenses, I was going to have to rewrite my barrier logic.
"...She's a psycho," Clive muttered.
I wobbled to my feet like a newborn fawn, and a regretful Clive offered me a shoulder to lean on.
"I'm partly responsible for this. Sorry."
"Pant, pant... I'm going to kick your ass later too, but first, can I say one thing?"
"Wait, you're still going to kick his ass?" Alicia asked, but I ignored her.
"I certainly intended to kill him, but he's probably not dead yet."
"What...?"
If I'd vaporized his body, he'd be dead in the literal sense, but Belial had interfered before that could happen. Everyone was assuming he was dead, but since Edward still had a role to play in the scenario, he wouldn't die until that role was finished.
"What happened out there?"
"We should probably leave before we talk about that," Patricia said. "Things are chaotic, but there are still too many eyes here."
"Fine."
With Clive joining the group, we left the waiting room. As we headed toward the school building, I brought him up to speed.
"You're right. I didn't notice because I was indoors, but it's really gone," Clive muttered, looking up at the sky through a window.
"I didn't realize... Why hasn't anyone started panicking?" Treisa had finally woken up. She followed at the back of the group, nodding while swaying slightly from anemia.
I wanted to tell her it was because everyone was obsessed with the festival, but that would only make things more complicated.
"Either the idiots in this country are too peace-addled, or they're under some kind of cognitive manipulation," Patricia said, choosing her words with her usual bite. "In any case, the barrier is gone, and a demon appeared and took Edward away."
"What for?"
"Isn't it obvious? A soul swap."
That was Patricia's take on the matter.