I got into school for nothing - 306
I got into school for nothing (306)
Lesson 60. Head of the Family - 1
Ban Yumi stared at the enemy before her, a sword forming in her heart.
The reason was simple: this foxy bitch, oblivious to her place, dared to covet her younger brother.
As she gazed at the face of the kunoichi Anneri Dedota, who was smirking as if she knew all of Ban Yumi's inner thoughts, Ban Yumi felt an urge to grate that face clean off on a grater.
"Didn't I tell you I'd handle contact with that bastard myself, or did I not?"
"But the grand undertaking is almost upon us, isn't it? As the mercenary leader, I had many things to coordinate with Yuwon-nim."
Just as she said, the grand undertaking—the acquisition of the family—which they had envisioned taking several years, had somehow arrived right at their doorstep.
Although her brother always acted prickly toward his sister, he actually cherished her terribly. That's why he was bustling about, incredibly busy trying to help her...
"What? Coordinate in many ways?"
"Coordinate?!"
"Seriously, today I'm going to kill you and become the mercenary leader! No matter how unrefined my brother may be, I won't hand him over to you lot, I can't stand the sight of it...!"
"Oh my, our Yuwon-nim, unrefined? An unrefined man couldn't possibly charm so many women, could he?"
"Ch-charm...!"
Ban Yumi's already fierce eyes completely flipped, consumed by fury.
The sword she had formed in her heart instantly burst into a fiery blaze, transforming into a blade of flames.
Sword and flame, the two qualities symbolizing Prominence, merged into one, pushing her combat power to an extreme.
Of course, the disadvantage was that, despite her immensely powerful abilities, her body was still too weak to sustain them for long――.
"Die, Anneri Dedotaaaaaaa!"
"Just with this much? How will you protect Yuwon-nim like this?"
"Graaaaaaah!"
"Hah, our young lady, truly."
Kiira Esra Prominence, a branch member of the Prominence family who had been sent to Earth as an agent, and who now served and assisted Ban Yumi by her side, shrugged her shoulders as she watched the flames Ban Yumi unleashed.
Watching the flames she generated made the blood flowing through her own heart boil in response. It certainly felt as though Ban Yumi was entirely capable of calling herself the true master of Prominence.
"Still, to stand above others, she's still too green――. To have her eyes flip with just that level of provocation."
"Hehe, Kiira. Think of it this way."
The young woman who had been watching with a cheerful expression... Kang Eunyoung, who had become so youthful that one might mistake her for Ban Yumi's slightly older sister, spoke as she watched her daughter fiercely battling Anneri.
"Someone's carefully kept a bottle of wine locked away for decades, where no one could touch it... No, 'aged' would be a better word. An aged wine, and then someone else just snatches it and drinks it all. What's more, if that wine wasn't even truly hers to begin with, making her unable to properly vent her anger, then wouldn't it be natural for her stomach to boil with rage just like Yumi's? For Yumi, that's her inverse scale itself."
"...Well, yes, certainly. Wine, huh? If our young master were wine, he'd surely be incredibly delicious..."
"Kiira, aren't you audacious, saying that where I can hear?"
"But, Sister Seira. If it wasn't hers to begin with, why lock it away, and why get angry when it's taken?"
"Ah... Seldon."
Seldon, the sole man and odd-job worker of the mercenary group, interjected with an incredulous expression.
His words were entirely correct, but precisely because they were correct, they were utterly tactless.
Ban Yumi, who had retreated after a skirmish with Anneri, shot him a poisonous glare, then sharply flicked the sword in her hand through the air―.
"You, come here."
"Eek―― Isn't it a bit much to take out your anger on me after getting thrashed by Sister Anneri?!"
"And Mom, what do you mean Ban Yuwon is wine?! And what do you mean I locked him away? I didn't even cherish him!"
"Oh? Can Mom really talk about it? Really? Let's see, when Yuwon was in his third year of middle school..."
"Mom, you too, get out hereeeee!"
Amazingly, the dimensional mercenary group Rebel Force was always in this state, and even more astonishingly, they were still sailing smoothly despite it.
However, as Anneri had mentioned earlier, with the grand undertaking drawing near, they had been refraining from long-term expeditions recently. Instead, they were on standby, having activated the 'Invitation to Prominence' given by Ban Yuwon, ready to depart for the Prominence dimension at any time, while repeatedly conducting mock battles to sharpen their combat instincts.
Kang Eunyoung calmly won a round against her daughter, whose Authority control was failing and whose sword tip was wildly trembling from all the rage, then listed a multitude of points to correct before shaking her head and returning.
"Hmph, truly still a child."
"You're the one who lit the fuse, Sister..."
Kiira, who had been staring at Kang Eunyoung with an incredulous expression, let out a chuckle and turned her gaze back.
She was currently sifting through information about the battlefield where the mercenary group had been stationed until recently――specifically, the fierce battleground between dimension pirates and the Ortima Family.
"It's definitely as the young master said. As soon as we pulled out, the war situation started taking a strange turn. Only the battleship carrying Lusein Rown-Palomer Aquinas Ortima is running wild, and the Ortima fleet seems to be restraining it. Exodus's main force pulled out ages ago, and Crimson Spear seems to have only sent sacrificial lambs from the start... Just how many of the Ten Great Families are involved in this whole affair?"
"If possible, I would have liked to secure some Prominence corpses from this war, you know."
Kang Eunyoung, seated beside Kiira, skillfully tied her hair back and then looked with peculiar eyes at her daughter, who was still in the training ground, beating up Seldon.
"I also wanted to see our daughter take on other Prominence members. I wonder if rolling around as a mercenary and gaining real combat experience has been effective, because I feel her Authority getting stronger and stronger, you know?"
"So you felt it too, Sister. Where the Prominence family's restraining power and strength truly originate from, I feel it every time I see the young lady."
As she had said repeatedly, Kiira didn't have loyalty towards Ban Yumi from the very beginning.
To be precise, she had merely joined the Rebel Force because she was the older sister of the man she admired, and because she had no path forward if she didn't side with them...
Yet, recently, more and more, every time she encountered Ban Yumi's Authority, she found a feeling akin to awe growing within her.
Unlike the current family head, who had forcibly suppressed it with all sorts of magic, magical shackles, and the power of Constellations.
"What a waste. If only our Yumi had been given a little more time, she could have gathered the Prominence family members together, without the need for cumbersome divisions, and made them kneel with her Authority."
"Since there isn't time, it can't be helped... Still, thanks to the young master's competence, things have gone smoothly, haven't they? We're probably the only group trying to gobble up the Ten Great Families in such an easy way."
"Huh? But wait a minute... Yumi, what's shining on you?"
But perhaps they had been too optimistic?
"What's shining, you ask? This is what Ban Yuwon gave me... huh?"
"――Danger!"
Immediately afterward, a sudden manifestation of Authority swept over the group, and they were unable to resist.
To be precise, it seemed the Prominence family was more venomous than the group had imagined, and the family head's meticulousness, so great that he had even deceived his own daughter, shone through, managing to escape even Ban Yuwon's notice, despite his ability to read all concepts, even emotions.
The secret entry pass to the Prominence dimension, which Ulrike Prominence had offered to Ban Yuwon, and which, through him, had been given back to Ban Yumi.
It had been imbued with the Authority of the Constellation governing that dimension―― and the Constellation Follower of Ten Thousand Kalpas, having discovered its own trace, interfered, twisting the pass's function, even at the cost of permanently expending some of its own power.
And so, spatial transfer occurred.
The entire Rebel Force, led by Ban Yumi, was swept up in it, forcibly summoned to the S-7 Dimension, to the grand mansion where the direct lineage of the Prominence Family resided.
Ulrike had originally given the pass, which led directly to her room, intending to enjoy a secret rendezvous with Ban Yuwon when he secretly visited the family―― but the Constellation had subtly twisted the spatial coordinates, successfully summoning the four to the Sacred Flame Training Grounds, a place only accessible to those with Prominence family blood.
Naturally, gathered there were the family head and a dozen other direct lineage members who had not departed for the Fairytale Dimension, as well as hundreds of elite branch combatants.
"They've arrived."
As soon as she was summoned, Ban Yumi felt a formidable aura pressing down on her entire body and leaped back.
She could immediately see the figure of the one who had spoken to her.
A red mage's coat, orbs of flame burning intensely, concentrated into spherical forms.
A middle-aged man, with three such orbs circling and protecting his body in pairs.
The Prominence Family Head―― a man who greatly resembled the one Ban Yuwon had confronted in the Fairytale Dimension, but with a far more cold and fierce impression.
"I have waited for you for a long time. Though you may not realize it."
The man whispered with a serpentine smile.
Despite the physical distance between them, Ban Yumi bit her lip at the intimate, sticky, and utterly disgusting voice that felt as if it were whispering directly into her ear.
'Damn it, that bastard Ban Yuwon...! What the hell did he give me?!'
The thought of blaming her brother surged for a moment, but then, imagining him realizing this and blaming himself, her heart already felt like it was crumbling.
It wasn't his fault.
It was her own mistake, dreaming an impossible grand dream and burdening her brother.
She should have always been wary, knowing that an item obtained by deceiving the enemy could be a trap.
"Kiira Esra Prominence, you've done quite the charming deed."
The family head, who had been scanning Ban Yumi up and down with narrowed eyes as if trying to read her inner thoughts, soon shifted his gaze to Kiira, who was tensing and drawing her sword.
"I never imagined you'd betray the family and cling to a mere branch member with lowly mixed blood."
"The true branch family is you. I, on the contrary, have been loyal to the family."
Despite scoffing in reply, she couldn't hide the trembling of her legs.
As someone who, along with Kang Eunyoung, knew the family head's earth-shattering Authority and military might well, she couldn't shake the thought that all hope had turned to bubbles the moment she confronted him head-on like this.
Yet, she did not kneel, not due to a pragmatic calculation that she wouldn't be forgiven even if she did, but rather―― because of her foolish pride, wanting to stand tall until the end before the man she admired, and her surprising loyalty to the young lady who, as if to protect her companions, stepped forward and glared with wide eyes.
"A guardian knight of the branch family whom I thought was already dealt with, and even a pirate scum. Hah, how absurd. Did a bunch of riffraff who couldn't even set foot in the family's core dare to dream big?"
As the family head raised a hand along with his words, several direct lineage members, already wreathed in flames, stepped forward.
Among them was Ulrike Prominence, shedding copious tears of betrayal.
Whether it was betrayal towards Ban Yuwon, who had intended to use her, or betrayal towards her father, who had deceived even his own daughter in his desire to retrieve the 'Unquenchable Flame', she herself couldn't quite distinguish.
"I have no desire to speak further. Kill them all, and only spare the one carrying the seed. Retrieving that Authority requires a somewhat complex procedure."
―Retrieve? I want that child.
The one to cut through the tension, which had swollen to a bursting point, was a fervent voice that resonated throughout the entire space.
The Constellation Follower of Ten Thousand Kalpas, the guardian constellation of the Prominence family, who coveted the Unquenchable Flame.
The next moment, he astonishingly manifested as an avatar, gazing at Ban Yumi with an ardent stare.
―Other seeds won't be able to accept it. I must take that child as she is.
"But that one harbors an outrageous desire. I cannot permit it, so I shall extract only the Authority. Furthermore, 'cannot accept'? Both I and my daughter will surely be able to accept it. Isn't that right, Ulrike?"
"K-hmph... Yes, yes, Father."
Ulrike had certainly been considered a prime candidate to succeed Prominence, but she had made far too many fatal mistakes in her dealings with Ban Yuwon.
The family head's intention was clear.
If she couldn't wield the Unquenchable Flame, she could no longer remain as the successor.
'I'm really going to die.'
In this situation, where he knew that even a slight movement would lead to a baptism of countless flames, incinerating him into a handful of ashes in the next moment, he hesitated even to breathe.
All things considered, Seldon, who was arguably the most unfairly treated person present, furiously darted his eyes around, observing the situation as he thought.
'But where on earth is Sister Anneri?'
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