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“…Are you all right, Estea?”

Just as I was mulling over Ignis’s speech, I heard Hom whispering to Estea.

“Yes, I’m fine—or at least, that’s what I’d like to say…”

Estea trailed off, then wrapped both arms around herself, her hands covering her elbows. Even after Ignis had left the auditorium, his followers continued to stir up the crowd, their voices praising him ringing out across the hall. The reaction to Ignis’s speech had clearly been greater than Estea had expected, and she seemed at a loss over how to respond.

“Still, if he was gonna bring up Estea, the least he could’ve done was stick around and hear her speech…”

Melua teased him, but Hom shook her head with a serious expression.

“I don’t think he believes there’s no need to hear her speech. Perhaps his true aim is to make it look that way while actually preparing to interfere with the live.”
“Why do you think so?”

Marie tilted her head in puzzlement at Hom’s murmured words.

“What caught my attention was that he mentioned the live during his speech. If he truly thought of it as nothing more than childish amusement, he would have dismissed it as not even worth mentioning.”
“…But the fact that he didn’t means Ignis has a sense of urgency about it in his own way, doesn’t it?”

I continued, filling in the thought behind Hom’s words. Hom nodded deeply and looked at Estea.

“Something unexpected is going to happen. Of course, it would be best if nothing did. If I’m overthinking this, you can scold me later. But I feel we need to prepare ourselves and be mentally ready for it.”

Faced with Hom’s earnest plea, Estea lowered her eyes.

“…You mean the live might fail… In fact, if Ignis is going to send people to make it fail, then something meant to cause a failure is bound to happen. We’ve been preparing for this day, and we’ve come this far with everyone involved, but I… I won’t have everyone’s support anymore if we fail…”

Her murmur was an honest outpouring of Estea’s anxiety. And yet, that was exactly what Ignis wanted. We had no way of dispelling those fears right now.

It was a possibility we should have anticipated, yet Ignis had skillfully concealed it. Pretending not to take the live seriously, he had probably been preparing something behind the scenes, something he intended to unleash on us now.

“Hmmmm. I understand why you’re worried, Estea, but Joslan and I will be keeping watch backstage. I don’t think they’ll be able to interfere with things that easily.”
“Nyaha! I think so too. They can’t exactly chase the audience away, so that leaves us up onstage as their only target, right? If they went that route, everyone would figure out it was Ignis behind the interference, and that’d count as election fraud, wouldn’t it?”

There was some truth to what Marie and Farah said. Ignis wasn’t stupid enough to use such an obvious tactic. If anything, he should have learned plenty from his defeat at the Canalford Cup. If something beyond his own underhanded schemes prevented him from getting his way, he would simply have to come up with an even more devious scheme to overcome it. And Ignis was capable of that.

“…I’m sorry for making you worry. But since I said I would support you… since I said I would lend you my strength, I want to prepare for every worst-case scenario we can possibly anticipate.”
“Yes, I understand how you feel, Hom. I’m sorry too for giving in to my fears.”
“Even so, that just shows how much you trust us, so let’s take it as the compliment it is. Besides, if it’s just the usual sort of trouble, Master will figure something out,” Melua adds.
“I’m not all-powerful, either. But I promise I’ll do everything I can.”
“You have all of us with you. I believe your sincerity will surely reach them. So, just like always, show them the Estea that only you can be,” Marie says.
“Yes. Thank you, everyone. I’m off.”

With that, Estea parted the curtains set up on the stage and stepped out before the entire student body.

“And nowww, we’ll be bringing you Estea’s speech, followed immediately by Re:berty’s first live performance!”

As Ms. Matilda introduced her, Estea bowed deeply. The scattered applause that followed made it clear just how much the students’ response had been affected by Ignis’s speech moments earlier.

“Not just a speech, but a live performance, too…”
“I thought she was a serious person, but this feels like she’s treating it as some kind of game.”
“What even is Re:berty? It sounds kind of pretentious. I don’t like it.”

Amid the applause, I could hear murmurs and whispered conversations spreading through the auditorium. It seemed Ignis’s followers had dispersed themselves throughout the crowd to stir things up, but it was clear that some of the other students had been swayed into forming a negative opinion of the live.

The positive response I’d sensed during rehearsal might have been directed at the live itself. As an election campaign for the Student Council, however, it may have been too avant-garde for them to accept.

The fact that so many nobles attended this academy was itself proof of how conservative they were, with their preference for hereditary succession. Ignis had repeatedly emphasized the keyword “development,” but the reason such development was possible was precisely because it was built upon the established foundations of noble society.

In my previous life, I’d always been alone, and in this life, I’d been a child, so I’d never paid much attention to political maneuvering. But if I thought about it, perhaps this was something I should have been able to understand.

Still, it wasn’t a lie that I’d wanted to believe in Alfe’s sparkling idea. In fact, I still firmly believed in what the live represented: the desire to show the entire student body, through music, what Estea wanted to accomplish and what kind of academy she wanted to build.

“Performing a live as part of a Student Council campaign… I’m sure some of you welcome the idea, while others may criticize it.”

Estea began addressing the entire student body. It would be a short speech, but one filled with her feelings. Even from her opening words, I could tell she wanted to listen to the criticism as well and hear every voice.

“I decided to form a band and make this live part of my campaign because I wanted to do what I could together with these members who have supported me. Our band name, Re:berty, combines Liberty, meaning to seize our own freedom, with Re, meaning ‘once again.’ Together, they express our wish to ‘seize our freedom once again.’ By freedom, I mean the order and freedom that this academy is supposed to have. The diversity of the band members gathered here is a microcosm of the academy I hope to create. If everyone cooperates and joins hands, we can accomplish something this wonderful… Please let us show you that.”

Estea bowed once more, and that served as the signal for a thunderous round of applause. With a radiant smile, she raised her head and turned to look back at us before picking up her beloved guitar.

“Now, please listen to ‘Prayer of Gratitude,’ a song filled with our gratitude for everything up to this day, and our hopes for the days ahead.”

A tremendous cheer and round of applause welcomed us.

The stage lights shining down on us were dazzling, making Alfe look even more radiant than usual. Huh. How unusual. Even I could clearly feel my spirits rising.

Alfe released my hand and stepped forward.

Alfe met my eyes and smiled. She was all right now.

“I’m gonna sing.”

I nodded and sent her on her way. Alfe gripped the microphone tightly. The intro swelled along with Estea’s lead guitar. When Alfe began to sing, it felt as though all the sounds in the world had become ours alone.

The music bounced, calling out how much fun it was.

We looked at one another, meeting each other’s eyes as we played our respective parts, letting our sounds ring out together. Hom’s joyful notes joined mine, while Estea pulled us forward.

Farah’s drums and Melua’s keyboard firmly supported us, leading us toward the chorus. The enormous crowd of students swayed and bounced along with our music.

Just as the song was approaching its climax—

A nasty smell of something burning assaulted my nose.

With a bad feeling in my gut, I quickly looked around the stage. Hom was turning her head restlessly, searching for something. Following her gaze, I saw flames that had appeared out of nowhere taking hold in several places along the aether supply cables, starting to burn.