Sendai Yuusha wa Inkyou Shitai

And here is the third chapter I promised. Enjoy.

The Preceding Hero, On Standby?

To begin with, just what is the 『Galarie Magic Clad Martial Arts Demonstration』.

To those of you that thought that since it was called a Martial Arts Demonstration it would be where displays of sword battles would take place.

Several hundred years ago, that recognition wouldn’t have been wrong.

……That’s right, in those several hundred years, the Magic Clad Martial Arts Demonstration has changed greatly.

The Martial Arts Demonstration that displayed a kind of research society aspect where every magic and martial arts school would display their own techniques and study the techniques of other schools had changed directions from a single sentence of a certain martial arts demonstrator.

「I knew our school was the coolest and the strongest.」

It was a bit changed but it was this kind of way of talking that was light and looked down on the other schools.

And then, the other schools’ martial arts demonstrators weren’t gentle enough to take those words quietly.

「Oh? What, you’re puny group is the strongest? Don’t make me laugh, numbskull.」

「You guys ain’t much different. Besides, our school is the best.」

「Ah? What? Wanna fight about it? We don’t really have a problem with it, you know?」

「Hell yeah we wanna fight!」

Like that, a brawl with every school jumbled in together started, but there was no way that something like the strongest school could be decided with something like a brawl.

It’s because there were also some people that would survive with sly ways of fighting.

Diligently trying to decide the strongest, the top, was something to be admired, but there wasn’t just a few that were dazzled by the title and tended heavily towards evil ways. In fact, a majority of them started using underhanded tactics.

Things like putting drugs that cause stomach aches in food, or covering toilet paper in large amounts of mustard……

The leaders of each nation that greatly saw the situation where such fiendish actions were so readily performed collaborated with each other, and, taking a few decades, they succeeded in making them fight following some rules.

And that is how it became the current Martial Arts Demonstration.

◇

「And so, time flowed and in the world that flowed with it, it became a tournament to see who was the strongest……No wonder it’s so dangerous.」

In the competitor’s waiting room of the arena in Be Io, I was reading a guidebook that Bernadette had possessed.

Around me, men with muscular bodies were hard at work in tuning their respective weapons and bodies.

By the way, even though I say competitor waiting room, it’s not like I’m the one participating.

「Fu, yah!」

I was Bernadette’s attendant, who was practicing her kata in front of me.

「Fu, Fufufu. I’m in perfect form today, Yashiro-san! I feel like if I were in this condition, I could exterminate that huge Dragon Zombie from before!」

To hunt the Ancient Dragon that took both me and Kaito to kill solo, that really is unreasonable.

Well, it’s probably that. She’s probably trying to say that she’s in that kind of perfect condition.

「When I commence my attack from its flank, since it would most likely do an attack to try to mow me down with its arm or tail, I would jump onto the part that was attacking and run on top of it……」

Ah, she plans on going through a complete walkthrough of it, this Bernadette-san.

「By the way, Yashiro-san, aren’t you going to participate as well?」

「By participate……Do you mean in this tournament?」

「Yes.」

Having finished her simulation, Bernadette sat down next to me on the bench I was sitting on.

「Yashiro-san, although it was by a paper-thin margin, you were able to evade my attack. You have plenty of talent, and even in terms of the body, you seem to boast a high standard. I felt it when I had the chance to touch you before but, I thought that you had a kind of 『perfected body』.」

Mu~. Perfect, huh……For me, I just wanted to turn my body in one where the Onee-sama types would want to lean on it but……(This is a digression but, when I said the same thing to Sylvia in the past, I was seriously made to stop).

Wait, huh?

「I haven’t let you touch my body before, right?」

I did to her though. Like her chest.

「Gi, giku.」

What’s with that, that reaction that not even the present day children would do.

「Y, you’ve got it wrong! B, by no means! By no means did I think that the sleeping Yashiro-san’s stomach was sexy and unconsciously touch it! By no means did I do that!!」

「……Is, is that so. I got it.」(monotone)[1]

I’m used to touching but I guess I’m not used to being touched. ……I, I’m kind of embarrassed.

「Would all competitors participating in the preliminaries please gather around!」

When Bernadette tried to continue on while her face was dyed red, a person that seemed to be one of the staff entered the competitor waiting room. As expected, it seems that they came to call for the competitors.

「D, do your best, okay, Bernadette.」

「Please don’t become so formal all of a sudden!」

I saw off the teary eyed Bernadette was lightly waving my hand.

Still, is she really alright? Though, she was in awfully high spirits.

Although she said 「Leave it to me!」 as she was filled with self-confidence and puffed out her chest when I was hesitating about if I should appearing this tournament……

Maybe it’s because I don’t have an accurate grasp of Bernadette’s true ability that there is some anxiety that remains.

Maybe because I was thinking about that or maybe because I was poor at sensing people’s presence like usual, I was late in noticing the figure of a person that was approaching me.

「Nn? ……Do you need something from me?」

By the time I noticed, a blond guy that was about the same age as me or younger was standing in front of me.

「You’re not going out there?」

A soprano voice reached my ears. That guy with a slender physique looked down at me, who was sitting on the bench, and seemed somewhat disgusted.

「Well, since my companion was in high spirits, I thought I’d leave it to her.」

Though I also had the reason of not wanting to stand out too much.

「……Hiding in the shadow of a woman, do you still call yourself a man like that?」

That guy that said that and seemed to be disgusted with me from the bottom of his heart had obviously taken an attitude that looked down on me.

「……Ah?」

「HA! Are you unable to do anything but glare?」

What the hell, what the hell is this? Why did it suddenly turn into this kind of atmosphere!?

For starters, why did this guy come to provoke a fight with me?

I don’t get the meaning of it.

「You want to meet my old man, right? Then don’t rely on something like a woman, and come out yourself.」

Saying that over his shoulder, that guy was about to leave the waiting room.

Old man? ……Nn? This guy,

「Me and the old man, we both hate weak bastards, you know?」

From within that blond hair, fox ears were sticking straight out. ……I see, so that’s why it was a bell.

The port city where many of the Wolf Tribe reside, 『Be Io』.

Vodan-shi who was the chief of that city was naturally one of the Wolf Tribe.

I was wondering why the Headmaster would send a bell to that Vodan-shi’s child but……he’s probably an adopted child or something.

Vodan’s child, was of the Fox Tribe.

Translator’s Notes:

[1] The monotone part isn’t really there. The line was done in all katakana.