I Became the Academy’s Female Delinquent Chapter 25. Brísingamen

Elsie, looking troubled, gazed at the tied-up thugs.

Bound so tightly they couldn’t even dream of escaping, they were still unconscious.

Elsie propped her chin on one hand and asked Thrud and Doyun,

“What should we do?”

“Turning them over to the guard would be best, generally…”

At Doyun’s hesitant words, Thrud slowly nodded.

However, these weren’t simple thugs, but individuals with a backer.

Moreover, having guessed that they came with a purpose, this wasn’t a problem that could be easily dismissed.

“It seems clear they’re guys sent from the family… I guess we have to make them confess what they know.”

“I don’t know how much they’ll reveal, but I think that’s a good idea too.”

Doyun solemnly agreed with Elsie’s opinion.

Not only did they try to poison Elsie, but they even sent assassins like this.

For her safety, it was essential to extract information.

“Do we have to torture them or something?”

“Well…”

Doyun was at a loss for words at Thrud’s question.

Frankly, none of them here were experts in torture.

After much deliberation, Doyun recalled their suspiciously strange homeroom teacher and spoke up.

“If it’s too difficult for us alone, we could ask Reginleif-sensei for help…”

“Ah-! That’s it!”

Elsie, who had been lost in thought with her chin propped up, shouted as she thought of a method worth trying.

This world was one where the game’s settings and mythological content coexisted.

Like Thrud’s skill, Fist of the Heart. Even settings that would never work in a game were functioning normally.

‘It seems like the game was modeled after this world.’

Settings that were once treated as mere text were now functioning.

If that was the case, then among the items Elsie possessed, there might be something helpful in obtaining information.

“That’s only if it works according to the settings… but there’s something worth trying.”

“That?”

“Something worth trying?”

Elsie, smiling slyly at Thrud and Doyun, who were looking at her with puzzled expressions, immediately reached out her hand.

Whoosh-

A black sphere appeared in mid-air.

Once again, Elsie’s inventory space had appeared.

The black sphere that appeared whenever Elsie did something foolish.

As it revealed itself again, Thrud grimaced.

“Not that again, Elsie? What’s coming out this time?”

“Why are you reacting like that, Thrud…”

Thrud’s attitude towards the black sphere was far from reassuring.

At that sight, Doyun could only glance back and forth between Thrud and Elsie.

“This time it’s really useful!”

At Elsie’s confident shout, Thrud’s head turned.

“You say that, but all you did was pile luggage on the shield you pulled out!”

“W, well, if the summoning hadn’t failed-”

“What about the staff you pulled out next? You only took it out to support yourself because it was hard to walk-”

“Ugh…!”

Elsie couldn’t refute and blushed.

It was true that she had used the items she had taken out of her inventory in a very unimpressive way.

But this time, she was really confident.

Assuming the item’s settings were reflected and it worked normally…

‘It’s now or never!’

In terms of settings, its ability was far from the strength Elsie was pursuing.

But in a way, it was an item with the potential to be quite terrifying.

Elsie squeezed her eyes shut and plunged her hand into the inventory space.

“Ultimate beauty, Brísingamen!”

A strap made of brilliantly twisted gold and pure silver, and jewels connected like stars.

The necklace in Elsie’s hand exuded an extreme balance of beauty, neither excessive nor lacking.

The unusual energy emanating from the necklace was enough to make Thrud and Doyun tense up almost instinctively.

“It looks the most ominous of all the things you’ve taken out so far.”

At Thrud’s exclamation, Elsie swallowed hard and nodded.

The Shield of Nullification nullifies the attacks it receives.

Gambanteinn neutralizes or deflects attack magic.

Like this, it’s hard to feel the changes in equipment where the original settings of the item and the functions in the game match.

But this necklace was a little different.

Brísingamen, which was just a troublesome bound item in the Aesir Saga.

It was simply a myth-grade accessory that drastically increased the wearer’s aggro stat.

It had an ambiguous use. However, the item’s settings were almost identical to those passed down in mythology, which was-

That it granted infinite beauty to its owner.

Therefore, Elsie had no idea what kind of results it would bring if it worked according to the settings when it came to this world.

‘Well… it would be enough if it only had the effect of making those guys confess information…’

‘Grants infinite beauty.’

How effective would that abstract and ambiguous setting really be?

Would it bring a strong sense of emotion, like when one’s gaze is stolen by something beautiful?

If one felt such a biased emotion infinitely, it could certainly be called fascination.

A slightly, very extreme fascination.

Wouldn’t one go crazy from the infinitely amplified emotion?

“Hmm… still, that doesn’t make sense. Infinite beauty.”

Elsie decided not to think too deeply.

It was something that could be tested.

And there happened to be three targets tied up to test the item’s effects on.

“Still… I think I should do a simple test…”

There would be no situation more embarrassing than using it in a real battle and it not working according to the settings.

Elsie, looking down at Brísingamen, slowly looked at Han Doyun.

“…?”

***

Hrókr gradually regained consciousness, feeling tremendous pain in his abdomen.

Then, in an instant, he snapped to his senses and realized he was bound.

“Wh, where is this!”

Looking around in a daze, he saw the door he had smashed lying against the stairs.

“It’s my house. No, to be exact, should I say it’s the house you prepared to kill Elsie? Anyway, it’s my house now.”

Elsie’s soft, beautiful voice came from nearby.

With all the lights turned off, the house was filled with faint moonlight.

In the middle of that quiet space, Elsie was sitting on a chair with her legs crossed, looking down at him.

Her silver hair, as if moonlight had settled on it, was truly beautiful.

“Y, you…!”

The powerful combat ability she had shown was not normal.

The incompetent Elsie Adorencia he knew was not like this.

“It can’t be! You were definitely a weakling! How-”

“Yes. The old Elsie would have been like that. ‘Weak,’ and for such a pathetic reason, she would have been ignored even by trash like you, and received unpleasant gazes.”

There was no agitation in Elsie’s coolly subdued voice.

It sounded like she was angry, and it also sounded like she was feeling sorry.

“How could a woman like you have that much power…! D, didn’t you drink the poison!”

Whether she drank the poison or not, Elsie’s strength was still inexplicable.

Hrókr couldn’t understand the situation he was in at all.

It was a desperate struggle because he couldn’t understand.

By now, he should have had that girl under him, tormenting and enjoying her until she died.

“Haa-”

Elsie’s gaze narrowed as she looked at Hrókr.

She didn’t expect much, but he really wasn’t making any sense.

Elsie threw Nidhogg’s empty poison bottle in front of Hrókr.

“I drank it and died, as you guys wanted.”

Thinking about the Elsie in this world, anger welled up, and she couldn’t stand it anymore.

Now that she had become Elsie, this was no longer a problem she could dismiss as someone else’s business.

“Even if I don’t remember the humiliation Elsie has suffered, I’m going to take revenge in my own way. So I need to hear what you know.”

“Keuheuk… Khahaha!! Just because you have a little power that doesn’t suit you… all I can do is laugh! Just because you beat me, someone like you-”

“Shut up. Just tell me what you know.”

“If you think I’m going to talk-”

Elsie started laughing at Hrókr’s arrogant attitude.

“Ahahaha! How can you sound so much like a third-rate villain?”

“No matter what you say, I-”

“Don’t worry. You’re going to confess everything.”

Elsie held out Brísingamen to Hrókr.

And she looked straight at him and began to smile brightly.

It was a smile that was too clear and bright, out of place in this situation.

“I was wondering what it would be like to ‘grant infinite beauty to its owner.’ It’s just as I thought.”

It was similar to a fascination that captivated the target, but it was a fundamentally different kind of power.

Elsie, thanking Han Doyun in her heart for being the first test subject for Brísingamen, began to put on the necklace.

Clatter-

As Elsie tried to put on the necklace, which had a strange power, an unknown anxiety suddenly gripped Hrókr.

Hrókr’s instincts began to scream that Elsie must not be allowed to wear that mysterious necklace.

“St, stop… St, stop right now!!”

Elsie glanced at Hrókr with her blue eyes, then nonchalantly put on the Brísingamen.

* * *

Clack!

Elsie felt a pleasant click as the clasp fastened, securing the Brísingamen around her neck.

Hrókr, sensing an instinctive fear of the unknown danger, writhed.

“What is that! There’s no way a wench like you could possess such a treasure!”

“Tsk. It’s not even in use yet, and you’re already making a fuss. Just tell me what I need to know, you’re being loud.”

Elsie clicked her tongue and slowly rose to her feet, approaching Hrókr.

She was about to do something, this Elsie who had become an unknown entity, wielding an artifact that radiated ominous power.

Hrókr’s reason was paralyzed by fear of the necklace.

“S-stop! If you don’t stop right now…”

“If I don’t stop?”

“I’ll kill myself…!”

It was a bluff. A man who lived pursuing base pleasures had no such resolve.

The Brísingamen began to glow.

Kee-ee-ing!

It would be troublesome if the target resisted the power.

So, at the cost of a massive energy drain,

She would unleash the Brísingamen’s power to its maximum.

The Brísingamen, its game function gone and now wielding the same power as the mythical artifact, began to bestow infinite beauty upon its wielder, Elsie.

The wielder is perceived as endlessly, simply infinitely beautiful.

It was nothing short of a devastating mental attack, far surpassing charm or illusion magic.

“Ugh, oooooh!!”

A scream of ecstatic joy, almost a shriek, erupted from Hrókr.

The two subordinates who were tied up with him also snapped to their senses at the roar.

They looked at Elsie with puzzled faces, then began to scream like Hrókr.

The torture of pure ecstasy had begun.

Before their eyes, a being more beautiful than anything in this world had manifested.

‘That’s how it must feel. An endless surge of joy and awe, never fading.’

“Elsie! Are you alright?”

“I’m deploying at maximum output right now, so absolutely do not come in here!”

Elsie shouted at Thrud, whose voice was filled with worry from outside.

Someone with a strong mental fortitude like Han Doyun might be able to resist the Brísingamen, but at maximum output, there was no telling what might happen.

She didn’t want to see Thrud accidentally come in and end up like these guys.

And-

“Cough… The more targets affected, the more extreme the energy consumption becomes…”

Even when the Brísingamen’s power was acting on a single person, she felt an energy drain comparable to summoning a Divine.

But with three people, it was beyond what she could handle.

Elsie wiped away the blood trickling from her nose.

She sensed that her life force was being eroded, not just her energy.

“Wow, what the… How did that simple performance item turn into such a fuel-guzzling, self-destructing piece of equipment?”

The problem was that it continuously consumed energy while in use.

“Let’s finish this quickly, since we don’t have much time. Do you still want to kill yourself?”

“N-no! Uooooh… Just a little more. Let, let me see your face a little longer!!”

An abstract and incomprehensible concept of infinite beauty.

Hrókr’s mind was twisted as it was forcibly hammered into his head.

His writhing form, so unlike his burly physique, as he squirmed as if trying to get closer, was grotesque.

Elsie recoiled at the sight, instinctively disgusted, and took a step back.

Then, she rubbed her head as if she had a headache and opened her mouth.

“Then tell me everything you know. Everything about the Adorencia family!”

* * *

A short while later, all the information Hrókr had about the family had been exhausted.

Elsie indifferently looked down at him, his eyes wide and spitting as he had nothing left to confess.

With a pale complexion and a faint smile, Elsie staggered out.

“Haa… Why is today so hard?”

As Elsie, who had stowed the Brísingamen, came outside, Thrud ran up and supported her.

“I knew it! You overused your power again, didn’t you?!”

“There was some trial and error involved in getting the information. But thanks to that, I gained a lot…”

“Think about your own body too!”

“Ahaha… Sorry, Thrud. I… I need to sleep for a bit… Like you said, I overdid it today too much-”

Thrud caught Elsie, who had slumped over before she could even finish her sentence, and looked down at her with a troubled expression.

“Doyun is still passed out, and I’m supposed to clean up this mess by myself…?”

Doyun, the first victim of the Brísingamen performance test, was still unconscious.

A ruined house, Elsie and Doyun passed out together, and thugs tied up.

It was a moment when the responsibility resting on the class president’s shoulders felt heavy.

And so, Thrud’s labor began.