Author: Himezaki Shiu	Original Source: Syosetu
Translator: Jiro	English Source: Re:Library

Project GB is an official initiative by Re:Library.

The town sank into a sea of fire. I didn’t know what kind of town it had been, but everything was destroyed by countless flames. The whole town erupted in chaos over the senseless devastation that suddenly arrived, but soon, no one’s voice could be heard.

The village before it had been quite a sight, but this one was just as horrific. I thought those who died instantly were the lucky ones. It seemed as though the village had been obliterated in an instant, but the town, it felt as if everyone was wrapped in flames, slowly approaching death.

(Dying sucks, doesn’t it? I get it.)

The village the night before had been more of a slow and relentless grinding down of my classmates’ spirits. After that, the sanity in their eyes was nowhere to be found. Many of them seemed completely unfit for round two. The Fraus Kingdom was indeed frightening. To use a group of people who’d never even killed before to wipe out an entire village was terrible.

Having said that, I wasn’t going to stop them.

I could only view the village from yesterday and the town from today as unlucky. And despite everything, the Fraus Kingdom had tried to reduce the number of casualties. They’d done this by sending one soldier disguised as a wounded villager. He had been running through the town, his body covered in fake wounds—pretending to flee for his life.

He’d told them that the Demon Tribe had destroyed a nearby village and made a convincing show of acting as if they were on their way to this town. I had asked Lulus to go and check it out, but, in truth, I just wanted to see the situation for myself. If everything went nicely, maybe I could’ve gotten another episode of “Getting to Meet My Classmates.”

This soldier had managed to arrive in the town just last night, a little after my classmates had started attacking the village. Thanks to this, by the time my classmates arrived, a good number of people had managed to escape. But, of course, there were still those who couldn’t.

Although the town had deployed watchmen on night duty, their luck ran out when they decided to close the gates to keep the people from entering the town. It didn’t work well in their favor when the Demon Tribe, or rather my classmates, further blocked the gates and decided to set the entire town ablaze.

What surprised me most was that it was largely Tsukihara who had done this.

As had been the case when we last met, Tsukihara held the highest status among my classmates. Her magical abilities were particularly exceptional—on that front alone, she was probably comparable to an A Grade adventurer. Additionally, as the Sage, Tsukihara had access to basic magical enhancements that allowed her to unleash devastating spells like this.

After the attack, Tsukihara was completely dazed by the depletion of her Mana. Yamabe had to support her to keep Tsukihara on her feet. It was only natural that a person would collapse after casting magic powerful enough to destroy an entire town. If someone could casually unleash such magic whenever they wanted, the balance of this world would have been thrown into chaos long ago.

When it came to it, I could definitely do it. But I wasn’t balanced to begin with.

“Master Finis, will you just stand here?”
“I have no intention of doing anything. I just came to observe today. I’ve known about this operation for a long time, and I knew that if the heroes decided to proceed with it, this would happen.”

This had been the first time they’d killed anyone, and their opponents had ended up being unarmed, with the occasional young child mixed in. Unfortunately, I couldn’t fully grasp the emotional weight they were suffering. But when I looked at their exhausted expressions, I could at least imagine it. To me, this felt like I’d achieved a part of my revenge.

“Besides, I promised not to interfere as long as it didn’t hinder our objectives.”
“So, shall we return for today?”
“Might as well. But, since we’re here, let’s first play a little trick.”

I directed my gaze forward and saw Ichinari throwing his sword. Afterward, he simply left it there, so I checked my surroundings before approaching it. When I finally picked it up, I found it was just an ordinary sword.

Nothing remarkable, though it was slightly on the expensive side. It was made of steel—nothing extravagant. However, back in Japan, I’d once looked up the price of Japanese swords out of curiosity. I remember being surprised that they were somewhat affordable if I worked hard enough, unlike the tens of thousands of dollars I’d imagined. In that sense, would the value of a sword over here be comparable? Maybe not. After all, in Japan, you could buy a kitchen knife for 1,000 yen.

The sword in my hand was commonplace, the type a mid-level adventurer might carry, but there was blood all over the blade. It bore no emblem of Fraus, so it was likely just a random sword Ichinari had bought. I duplicated the sword exactly, down to the last detail, and left the copy behind.

Moving undetected, I returned to the place where I had been observing the group.

“What are you going to do with that sword?”
“I think I’ll leave it in the village we were in yesterday.”
“Why would you do that?”
“It might amount to nothing, or it might be the start of something. But there is no particular meaning behind it.”

It was just an idea. I had a faint expectation of what could come from it, but I knew it was far more likely that nothing would happen at all. My objective was simply to prolong the tension between my classmates and Fraus for as long as possible.

Fraus would declare war on the Nigel Kingdom in response to the total destruction of villages and towns. And the war that was about to begin wouldn’t just end in a day or two. Given the current situation in Fraus, they’d likely aim to resolve it within a few months. However, if I were to consider their original goal, they would want to continue their conquests—invading other kingdoms even after crushing the Nigel Kingdom and taking their spirit.

This had all started because Fraus’ spirit was weak, and they wanted another one.

Regardless, even if I did nothing now, my classmates would face hardship. There was no salvation waiting for them at the end of the road. And for now, I was fine with that.

“Now then, once we leave this sword in the village, shall we head to the Beastmen’s settlement?”

I called out to Lullus, prompting her to start moving. I wasn’t moving at a quick pace—just a light run, so we could chat along the way.

“Lullus, you don’t seem as entertained as I thought you’d be. I figured you liked watching massacres and such.”
“I have a grudge against the people of this world, so seeing them suffer makes me feel better. But I also feel more hollow than I expected. I don’t think I’d want to do something like that myself.”
“I can understand. It’s not like you even had the option to act on it in the first place. Besides, if you end up acting in a wrong way, it’ll just put me in trouble.”
“I know that perfectly well. But yes, it seems more in my nature to simply adjust the course of the world. I’ll just continue to observe.”
“I too think you should do just that.”

And as for me, I would eventually play a role in the collapse of the world. But I decided to keep that to myself. Ultimately, the world’s collapse didn’t really align with Lullus’ intentions.

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