Ch.245245 – What Have You Done

<245 – What Are You Doing>

1.

On Friday, when the inter-grade competition was held.

The first and second-year students felt a vague sense of uneasiness as soon as they came out to the vast field and saw countless lines spread across the ground.

“Don’t tell me this is…?”

“I’ve seen these lines somewhere before.”

“The court shape is the same, just a different size…”

First-year student council head Professor Mahabharata confirmed everyone’s suspicions.

“I’m announcing that this year’s inter-grade competition has been decided as team dodgeball, as a result of student council discussions. Everyone’s happy with that, right?”

“Wow! Dodgeball!”

The expressions of Son Ocheon, Hestia, and Sing, who had experienced Gift Academy’s dodgeball before, instantly crumpled.

The students who had been childishly excited realized something was terribly wrong when they saw the serious expressions of these experienced individuals and others.

“Why is everyone like that…?”

“Is dodgeball not good…?”

“…You’ll understand when you experience it.”

The bitter smiles of those with experience, saying you won’t know until you try it!

On the contrary, the second-years were extremely excited.

“This is the perfect event to teach these freshmen a lesson.”

“I’ve been stressed because people keep comparing us 980th class to the 981st class, saying they have more talented students than us.”

“Let’s show them that no matter how talented they are, they can’t overcome the one-year gap in admission.”

The second-years stepped onto the court, dreaming of one-sided domination!

The confusion was heightened because this wasn’t ordinary dodgeball where the ground is simply divided in half, but one where players could choose to enter any of thousands of large and small divided sections.

“Giselle. How should we position ourselves?”

Giselle, counted among the brains even within the advanced class.

Students who had experienced having their points mercilessly stripped by Giselle’s evil random gacha, or friends who had witnessed the establishment process of the Dark Association, sought her opinion.

“First of all, the regular class students are just there to fill numbers. In the end, this dodgeball is a battle of skill between first and second-year advanced class students.”

“But there are over two thousand regular class students?”

“Do you think two thousand regular class students gathered together could defeat Oknodie?”

“Well, that’s…”

“What about Sing?”

“That’s also difficult!”

“Dorothy?”

“Um… it’s embarrassing for me to say, but I don’t think I could win even against ten people…”

Giselle gave Isabelle a knock on the head.

“I’m talking about advanced class students who are generally strong in combat, not terrain-specialized students.”

“Then what position should we take against the second-year advanced class seniors?”

“First, there’s the ‘dedicated marking zone.’ Since multiple people can enter the same section in this inter-grade competition, we deliberately crowd in together, prepared to be eliminated together.”

Zhang exclaimed in admiration at Giselle’s brilliant strategy.

“The head of the Dark Association is indeed different. I would have just thought about stabbing someone to death if they were annoying, but I never would have come up with such an eccentric idea.”

“…Who are you calling eccentric?”

Despite Dorothy’s bewildered response, Zhang pretended it wasn’t about her, swishing her bob-cut hair and feigning innocence.

“Of course, since second-years can also use this strategy, we need to form a ‘fortress construction zone.’ Either protect sections where advanced class students are with regular class students, or have advanced class students support each other from nearby positions.”

Building a safe zone on the vast field.

“The more we stick together, the better we can exert our strength. If we don’t want to be hopelessly retired by Deadcat senior’s attacks, we’ll need regular class students to block attacks for us.”

Learning from past defeats, Hestia actively supported Giselle’s strategy.

“So which area will we take? Center? Periphery?”

“The center has high points, but that means many enemy advanced class students will be positioned there. The same goes for high-scoring sections on the edges. We’ll take the area in between.”

“Then what about the dedicated marking zone?”

“There will be students among the first-years who want to participate in individual events and are holding back. Let’s gather a suicide squad to aim for joint elimination with second-year advanced class students—they’ll be quick to forfeit anyway.”

Although it seemed like a match where you could enter anywhere on the disorderly placed field to score points, now that a proper strategy was established, formation selection gained meaning and tactical significance.

“Your skill at planning is amazing. If someone like you, Giselle, were under me, that family would greatly prosper.”

“You flatter me. It is you, Lady Arcadia, who has the capacity to restore the Ceviche family, downgraded to an earldom, back to a duchy.”

“Hehe. I would like that.”

The first-year peripheral forces following Giselle’s instructions on the checkerboard-like dodgeball court took positions largely in the south.

“It’s a decent strategy, but there’s no need to listen♡ The Empire will have its own formation☆”

The Imperial Princess Massgakki led the imperial students to position many of them at the 1 o’clock and 11 o’clock corners, high-scoring positions.

“A ball is effective when it’s passed back and forth. If everyone’s crowded in one place, how do you plan to recover the balls after hitting and missing~? Pupu~ Your thinking is so short♡ Just like your education♡”

“…That nasty brat. She’s no different from Oknodie, so why is her attitude so bad?”

“There’s nothing to gain by engaging with her. Be patient, Isabelle. She’s just a child who doesn’t even reach your chin.”

Indeed, there was no point in seriously fighting with the princess, whose mental age was low enough to genuinely bicker with Oknodie—it would only be to one’s own detriment.

“Oknodie. Come here!”

Now that the formation was set, they just needed Oknodie to come here.

Giselle and the students had completed their formation and were ready to bring Oknodie to the center.

“Huh? I’m going to be over here!”

Oknodie, seemingly oblivious to everyone’s thoughts and plans, squeezed her way in among the second-years.

“That idiot.”

“Hahah. Trying to apply common sense to a weirdo will only cause pain to the person trying.”

“Sigh. I wonder why we even bothered using our brains.”

In the midst of such confusion, Professor Mahabharata lowered his flag.

Simultaneously, fireballs shot up from the instructors’ staffs.

Along with the sound of brilliant fireworks exploding, dodgeballs fell from the sky.

“Huh?”

“G-Giselle. What do we do?!”

Dodgeballs fell from the sky.

A lot of them.

At least thirty.

“Be careful. If you only look up and get tackled by second-years, you’ll step on the lines.”

Hestia grabbed the waist of a second-year senior who was clinging to her and lifted them up.

“Aaaah! Let, let me go!”

“This is what you wanted, senior.”

When Hestia threw the senior, second-years in the adjacent section toppled like dominoes and were engulfed in light.

Second-year regular class seniors with dumbfounded faces were teleported outside the court!

“Take this, take that!”

“Ah, it hurts!”

“Who scattered thorns on the ground?!”

Proving why they were called advanced class, even Dorothy, who was considered weak among the first-year advanced class, easily evaded numerous second-years.

Rockpell, Dorothy’s pair and Swiftblade, swung his sword like a gale, knocking down seniors who were standing in awkward positions, unable to properly put strength in their legs.

“Gah!”

“How frustrating…”

“To be eliminated before even catching a dodgeball.”

But advanced class students were few, and regular class students were many.

A few second-year regular class students luckily caught dodgeballs falling nearby.

“Hahya! Tremble in fear, first-years. Now I’ll show you the skill of a second-year…!”

Bang!

“Aaaaargh!”

The senior screamed, clutching his arm, as the dodgeball rolled on the ground below him.

“Huh? What were you saying about fear?”

“Y-you crazy woman. Who shoots a gun in dodgeball?!”

“The instructor said it was allowed!”

A nearby instructor nodded in confirmation.

As second-years cautiously approached the ball, Zigoku’s gun spat fire again.

Bang!

“You crazy woman! This isn’t dodgeball!”

“Gyahahat! Who cares? As long as I can shoot, that’s all that matters! Try that again from before. Make me tremble in fear? You’re second-years, right? Seniors? Come on, make me tremble quickly!”

The seniors in the adjacent section couldn’t even throw the ball and were subdued by the truly insane Zigoku’s atrocities.

“Take this, die!”

When the seniors, unable to endure anymore, bombarded Zigoku with magic, regular class students in the same section shielded her with their bodies.

“Argh!”

“Quickly, shoot all those seniors dead!”

“Gyahahaha! I like it. I might start liking dodgeball from today!”

Zigoku began enjoying something that could absolutely not be called dodgeball.

The advanced class students who benefited greatly from Giselle’s “fortress construction zone” strategy, though not as much as her, safely passed the initial phase.

“What about Oknodie?”

“She must have been eliminated. She’s beyond that crowd.”

“But she probably enjoyed herself before going out?”

As Isabelle and Giselle exchanged bitter smiles, Son Ocheon, staring at the wall of people made up of second-years beyond, said:

“I don’t think so.”

“What do you hear?”

“Screams.”

“Surely not Oknodie’s!?”

“No, the second-years are screaming.”

While first-years who went over for suicide attacks were getting thoroughly beaten just like the second-year regular class students, only one person remained perfectly fine amidst it all.

The protagonist making the surrounding second-years tremble in fear was, of course, Oknodie.

When the wall of second-years was blown open and the scene beyond became visible, the first-year advanced class students realized what Oknodie had done.

“Isn’t that worse than Zigoku…?”

Everyone agreed with Dorothy’s murmur.