For the first day of Holfort's School Festival Students are expected to host a variety of different events in exchange for extra credit in the class of their choice.
Popular choices include the Maid Cafe, a variety of Food stands and a number of carnival stands.
For the Second day, a series of extended air races between volunteers of all three years, starting with the race between the first years, then the Second years, and ending with the third years. For the second day only the streets of the capital are cleared, this is because the air bike race begins on school grounds, weaves along the streets of Holfort, bobs around the islands of the capital, before finally returning to the academy proper. After three laps of racing the race will be finished and the winner declared, as well as a generous reward of 300 000 Dia.
An Excerpt from the Pamphlet for Holfort's School Festival
Marie was having a crisis. That blasted Reincarnated Villain Princess from the third game had saddled her with the task of looking after these Five Fools, damn that mob for getting the name stuck in her head, which also meant that she was now stuck with five growing, muscle brained money sinks with no comprehension of how the real world works, banned from the one job that they actually know how to do and no allowances to supplement their income. As it stood, between Marie and the Five Fools they had made over 151200 Dia, after Sarah took her cut, plus the pittance allowance she got from the church. With five days worth of competition they had five chances to earn enough dia that the six of them could find some real jobs to supplement their income.
"I got it!" Julius snapped his fingers into the air as he made that declaration. "We should bet the money we made from the dunk tanks on ourselves during the competitions! We'll be able to multiply it by huge amounts like that!"
"Excellent idea your majesty!" Jilk gave the expected follow up.
The Pencil Marie had been working with snapped in her grip.
"Julius, Jilk. Do you know what my parents used all the money that they stole from me on?" Marie had a dead look in her eyes as she glared at the men in question. Julius's features slowly shifted from 'man I'm brilliant' to 'guilty puppy' before he just coughed awkwardly.
"Sorry Marie." Julius of course wasn't so buffoonish as to not apologise after slamming face first into Marie's trauma button, though unfortunately it was only Marie that he wasn't so buffoonish with.
"My apologies Marie." And Jilk followed up with his own, continuing to have no productive thought of his own. Marie was rapidly coming to the realisation that her boy toys were nice to look at but that was their only redeeming quality.
"Ah desperation." Greg's face instantly winced as he turned to face the main source of he and his friends'financial woes. "How I love the smell of it." Sarah walked straight into the room that the seven of them had been using as their base of operations, a broom closet. "Sarah!" Greg snapped angrily as he glared hatefully at his nemesis. "What are you doing here!? Come to steal more money from us!?"
"Steal? I take offence to such implications! You made a bet and you lost it." Greg doesn't think it's called a 'bet' when it's made after the other party has already surrendered. "On the contrary, I'm here to hire you five for your services."
"We're listening!" Marie almost shrieked she was in such a hurry to speak up.
"Currently the Winchester family doesn't have anyone hired to participate in any of the events, luckily I see five individuals here willing to work for 1000 Dia in each of the events, subject to the rules of our bet of course."
"If you think I will ever fly your colours!" Greg growled angrily.
"Oh I wasn't talking to you Greg." Sarah was smirking like the Cheshire Cat who caught the Canary. "No the only event you would be useful for is the Adventurer competition, and you aren't allowed into the dungeon." Technically it was a lie, Greg could easily participate in the melee tournament, and in fact actually planned to alongside Chris and Julius, but Sarah had already anticipated this reaction and planned ahead. "In fact the only person using this room who is qualified to enter is Miss Lafan over there."
"If you think we'll allow you to put Marie in Dang-"
"I accept!" Marie piped up before Greg's big mouth got her into trouble.
Carla was stuck between a rock and a hard place, a duke sized boulder with mastery over the elements, and a hard spiky place that kicks her when she gets bored, her only good news was that if this scheme succeeds then she'll be able to ditch the latter at long last.
"Well?" Stephanie demanded with a glare. Luckily 'shaking in terror' was the preferred state that Stephanie wants her in when they have these little chats.
"He'll act after the school festival is over. He had to get time off from school but he earned enough merit yesterday dur-"
"Don't speak of that in front of me again!" Stephanie snapped as she tapped her finger on her arm angrily. "A few other families are chipping in too. While Bastardmore is off trying to rescue your little hovel they'll be off to grind that third rate island chain into dust."
"Other families?" Carla asked hesitantly looking up at Stephanie.
"A whole forest worth of em." Stephanie smiled maliciously at that.
The Forest of Ladies is a popular but often dismissed conspiracy within the lands of Holfort, often held in the same regard as the Illuminati during the age of old. While I won't speculate on the legitimacy of that group I can say with certainty that the Forest of Ladies is very real, or failing that an organisation that is doing what it is said that they're doing.
The outline of the group is actually rather simple, its members marry into lower ranking noble families the Barons and the Viscounts mostly, more specifically the heirs to the territory, establishing their own children as the first and second in line to inherit the property. The Mothers take their children with them to their estates in the Capital, forcing their husbands alongside whatever mistress and illegitimate children they spawn to be driven into debt by continuously siphoning their funds for their own lavish lifestyle. Once the family goes bankrupt the territory is sold off as another source of income for the Forest Members.
In the mean time the Forest members use their connections to each other to 'find wives' for the aforementioned illegitimate children, many are married off before they can even enter the academy, and before they can legally come of age they are shipped off to the front lines of any number of Holfort's many battlefields with the expectation that they will die off and Holfort will pay out the generous pension. For this reason it's also common for the Forest to start wars with Holfort's neighbours in order to provide the conflict that enables their insurance scam. For the sake of Holfort's future, the Forest has to be cut down.
An Excerpt from Diary 1
Angie observed Leon on the starting line alongside the rest of the first years. Above her the same image was playing out in the sky, a hologram, like what she saw Leon's training session through. The Royal family was intent on making a big deal out of the lost technology they retrieved from Erica's dungeon, before the race would've been limited to doing laps around the arena, now each participant will have their own drone following them around providing the footage to the holograms for the amusement of the crowd, conveniently each seating section seemed to have been arranged by whom the individual in question is supporting, or rather who they've bet on.
Angie noted that Leon had a good relationship with the boys now, it wouldn't be right of him to use the betting pool to steal the school's money again, and besides reportedly the betting stations are only accepting small bets now. For now Angie was waiting for the race to begin alongside Livia, enjoying their sparkling water.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't the fallen Princess." Angie was already regretting not booking a spot in the VIP lounge. "Here to watch your bastard knight get his ass kicked?" Stephanie had approached Angelica from the side.
"I seem to recall you losing a great deal of money to that bastard." As Angelica spoke a pair of demi-humans emerged from the shadows beneath the seats. Stephanie's features notably cringed at their appearance.
"Oh so you swing that way do you?" Stephanie's features notably turned upwards as she spoke. "No wonder the Prince left you!"
"You need to leave." Left was already working to escort Stephanie off the premises.
"Let her speak." Unfortunately, for Stephanie, she had waltzed right up and slammed her face directly into Angie's trauma button like it was a one time deal on the most delicious cake in the world and she was without utensils.
"Isn't it obvious? You're gay! Your daddy must be so disappointed in his little girl!" Stephanie was radiating malice. "His little girl is a slut unwilling to spread her legs for a man!"
"That's Enough!" Olivia stood up in her seat, her fists clinched in anger. "Angie's not a s-"
"SHUT UP YOU PLEBEIAN WHORE!" Olivia took a step back at that. "Don't think that becoming the pet of this loser and her monster Baron is enough to gain the right to speak with me!" Olivia was legitimately taken back by Stephanie's words. "What did you think that you were her friend?" Stephanie laughed at that. "Are you that desperate after all your followers left you that you've adopted a therapy animal? I remember how much you used to hate commoners!"
"Angie?" Olivia was legitimately hurt by Stephanie's words that she ran off despite Angelica's attempts to stop her.
"She ran away at last." Stephanie let out a huff. "Guess the last of your friends were as insincere as the rest. You must be a horrible person!"
"Left, follow Livia and make sure she's okay." Angelica's tone was cold, as if something had just broken inside her, the people who thought that wouldn't be wrong.
"Right, Grab her and break her legs." Julius hadn't even made her this infuriated, and she was planning on absolutely ruining his life. The Demoness immediately grabbed hold of Stephanie by both of her arms.
"Release me you-AAAHHH!" Two broken legs later and Stephanie was down on her knees. "You Bloody Whore! Do you know who I am!?"
"I know exactly who you are!" Angelica formed a ball of fire in her hand before firing it through the air with a loud bang, striking no one but now the drone cameras that were watching the racers were aimed at Angelica. "And I am going to make sure everyone else knows it too!" As a start, Angelica heated the air around both of her hands to 55 degrees Celsius before grabbing Stephanie by her head. A horrific gut wrenching scream echoed out throughout the entire arena as all of Stephanie's hair was permanently burned off and her ears melted into the sides of her head.
"You bitch!" Stephanie screamed, she had already prepared magic to kill Angelica but she couldn't cast, the demoness restraining her was sapping all of her magic power until Stephanie doubled over and let out a loud puke.
"Now that I've finished my canvas, it's time to draw." As Angelica said that, her finger tip released a jet of blue flame. "You're right about one thing: I am a horrible person." Angelica received the straw that broke the camel's back at long last. Julius has been wearing down on her humanity for a long time, she's always known that her followers, old and new, were fair weathered friends at best, the abuse from Marie's family at least managed to elevate her status to 'human' in Angelica's eyes. This? This bitch that was threatening Leon and his family, insulted, bullied and tried to kill Livia, insulted her and her family to her face? There have been a lot of people lately who have been taking her family for granted, that think they are individuals who can be pushed around. This was what you call a good opportunity to remind people what the name Redgrave really means!
"HHHAAA!" Stephanie screamed louder than she had ever before as Angelica wrote a single word into the deep tissue of Stephanie's face, Bitch. Stephanie passed out in a pool of her own vomit, twitching.
"No one is to assist her in reaching the healers beyond providing her with directions." Angelica was speaking directly into the camera this time. "Anyone who takes such a great swell of pity on this creature as to provide assistance beyond that can join her in her burden." Angelica turned her attention to the Demi-humans and other minions of Stephanie as she finished speaking. They gave a nod of understanding as they ran off. "Right. I'm going to find a different place to sit to watch the race." Angelica gave one final glance to the person she mutilated. "It's disgusting here."
Leon was still looking to the air where the footage of Angelica mutilating Stephanie was playing out. So it'll take more than the winter vacation then. Or maybe the school's environment is just that toxic, normally Angie isn't a cruel person, so having to act like this even once in a while is bad for her mental health. He'll also have to find and comfort Livia later too.
"Lord Blackmore~!" A familiar figure had appeared from the crowd, Carla forced her way forward and landed a smooch on the side of Leon's helmet, and stayed a for a uncomfortable period of time before the click kicked in. "I'll be rooting for you!" Leon tuned into the race with the sound of three beeps going off and then he and the rest of the racers were sent flying forward under the power of their air bikes. Leon had been planning to listen to the contents of Carla and Stephanie's meeting that had just been quietly handed to him during the race, but he wouldn't have the leeway to do so right now.
"Drop dead butt head!" Various bikes were crashing into Leon's, various nobles had apparently decided to use him for bumper car practice.
"That's what you get for stealing my money!" Even if you called his relationship with the other low ranking nobles good there were still various mid and high-ranking nobles who lost all their money to his first round of gambling.
"What's your name, there's a duke friend you can talk to about being reimbursed." The other student recoiled in horror before zipping off.
Other's weren't even dissuaded by that much, continuing to harass Leon by slamming into the back of his air bike until they pulled a successful pit maneuver and spun him out into a bail of hay that was being used as a safety barrier. Leon tore off his broken helmet and growled, eyes glowing red. Feeling something like a migraine Leon touched his finger to his temple and winced at the piece of broken visor and blood that was coming out of the side of his head. Now make no mistake the 300 000 Dia was nice and all, but at the moment Leon had stopped caring about that.
"Those shits tried to kill me!" Leon circled his arm around his bike counter clockwise, the allusion of a clock flowing backwards appeared over the bike returning it to the state it was before crashing.
Leon's middle finger flared with demonic power before he jammed it into the accelerator and cranked, with a stomp of his foot Leon shot forward like a rocket in a burst of magic, technically he was going too fast to be able to control his vehicle, however his hair turned into a grapple as he grabbed a post and pulled himself onto the race track. In the absence of a mutual target for their hatred the poor sports were taking their aggression out on each other, throttling the accelerator Leon roared forward using the poor bastards as a ramp and went flying through the air ahead of them. After Landing in front of them Leon slammed his foot down, stepped off of the bike as he skidded to a stop, and then swung around the bike like a giant blunt instrument into the two that were still charging forward and unceremoniously ejected them from the race, bouncing them off of the top of some poor schmucks houses before they landed on the other side.
In the meantime Angelica was dutifully making several notes concerning the racers Leon was targeting.
Revenge had and rage satisfied Leon roared back into the race with a vengeance, and felt a familiar bump to the back of his bike. Snarling like an animal Leon dodged the next strike, the image of a clock flashed and the other guy's bike sputtered to a stop as they were suddenly missing an engine. A few more incidents like that occurred before people got the message to stay the Inferno away!
As Leon was starting to relax, a bomb went off in one of the hay barriers that had been off to the side as Leon was driving by throwing him off of his bike and leaving his side full of shrapnel. Very carefully, very calmly, Leon sat up and looked to the site of the blast, waving his arm around in a circle he projected the allusion of a rewinding clock the shrapnel was pulled out of his body, his wounds already stitching closed with his own hair turned thread, as a bomb was assembled in the middle of the scorched Crater Leon promptly ripped the detonator off as he turned his attention to the spherical camera drone that had been following him around.
"Is that gonna be the way it is?" The drone bobbed, if Leon didn't know better he would say that the red eyed camera had been giving him permission for something. "I don't need your permission!" Waving his arm Leon pulled a familiar set of guns out of the void of space, and watched as they turned into a familiar pack of hellish dogs. "Find who put this here, and bring them to the stadium." The dogs sniffed the explosive before taking off. Then, contrary to the behaviour of someone who needed medical attention for multiple injuries, Leon climbed back on his bike, wrapped his hair around his head and made another helmet, before taking off on his airbike again.
Luxion was more annoyed than anything else, having missed the bomb. He of course was able to identify the magi-signature for the explosive. Contrary to what he might've been thinking it wasn't just Blackmore that was being sabotaged, though maybe not as thoroughly, after the bombs planted on Blackmore's bike was discovered a thorough sweep of the machines had been conducted, and two more such explosives were discovered. It was a good thing that Blackmore was so hated, the blatant attempts to sabotage exposed the subtle one. Luxion followed that up with a sweep of the race course but by that point in time the race was minutes away. If it was just Blackmore Luxion would go look for the people who lost money to him, who were a lot he'd get around to them later, but the others indicated a far less personal reason: Jilk Fia Marmoria, Dan Fia Elgar and Leon Fou Blackmore, all favourites to win the air bike race.
It would appear that Blackmore's victory in the arena before had inspired people to pursue similarly long odds in gambling, though unlike he who was backed up by superior technology, magic and incompetent opponents they chose sabotage. And while the AI would get to those matters in time, he had to focus his immediate attention on keep the capital from burning down.
Blackmore was like a man possessed, leaving a trail of broken vehicles in his wake, slamming into any air bike that got in his way with enough force to send them flying. The students were being very aggressive today and a idea of why became obvious as Leon exited the town, they had entered the fast lane for lack of better term, the area over the expansive void of the sea, which also meant that they had entered the portion of the race where collisions were treated much more seriously, less someone risk falling into the sea below. Of course accidents do happen, hence students get parachutes but the spirit remained the same. Leon sped up as fast as he could until he eventually looped back to the racing track where there were a pair of familiar faces were waiting, Dan and Jilk.
"You rat bastard!" Leon jumped off of his bike as he drew Alastor from the void of space as he stormed over. "You tried to kill me again!" Leon raised the sparking blade above his head as he prepared to rip the booger haired man ass to appetite.
"WAIT!" Olivia ran in between the two of them, arms wide and barrier cast. "It's a misunderstanding! Jilk's hurt too!" As Olivia said that she gasped at the wounds going up Leon's side. "And so are you!"
Dan, Jilk and Leon had all been taken out of the race by explosives that were planted in advance, Leon was technically the first one hit but while rage made for great pain killer but it made better ear plugs so he didn't hear the repeated calls to come back to the starting line. Leon used Alastor as a cane as Olivia treated his injuries as he took in the other individuals, tears in their suits from where they got hit with shrapnel.
"Has anyone seen my pooches around lately?" Leon asked as Olivia finished healing him, his hair-turned-thread pulling itself out of his now absent wounds. "I sent them to track down the bomb maker that did all of this." As Leon was gesturing to himself Angelica walked in on the conversation.
"Leon there you are!" It occurred to Leon that his little rampage had his duke friend pretty worried. "Good you're healed already, follow me." Angelica instead grabbed his hand and dragged him off. "Come on, we have to stop your dogs before they kill anyone."
"The only person that they're threatening is the guy who tried to kill me with a bomb." Leon replied bluntly.
"Especially that one, we can't interrogate a corpse. Not unless you have some kind of magic to capture his soul and torture it for information." Leon opened his mouth to answer that. "That wasn't a question." Angelica however just cut him off.
The Beast man wasn't having a very good day, he was the cat chased up the tree by a group of hellish dogs. He naturally attempted to defend himself utilising the gun he had on his person, however all that a headshot accomplished was blowing off the entirely replaceable head. So here Miauler found himself up a tree demons below him circling like a feeding frenzy of sharks.
"Baskerville!" A loud whistle served as the prelude to the five demons suddenly retreating, turning into guns as they flung themselves at the human.
"Oh th-" The human used one of those guns to shoot him out of the tree before landing on the ground breaking several bones in the process. A boot planted itself against the cat man's arm pinning him to the ground as he looked up at the one who shot him down. "You!" Leon pressed the barrel of the shotgun against the Cat man's chin.
"Why'd you try and kill me?"
The Cat man snorted.
"Do you have any idea how many of my kind are out of a job because of you?" Leon noted the cat man's nice butler like clothing, even if his pooches had managed to singe the edges.
"Oh 'poor me, my luxurious lifestyle of group plowing the academy's women and mugging the students of their savings is now ruined. How will I ever live with myself!?'" Leon drew the hammer back on his weapon. "Why don't I do us both a favour?"
"Leon." Angelica approached from the side a firm tone in her voice. "Remember what I said about interrogating a corpse?"
"He confessed didn't he?" Leon stated by way of reply as if it was obvious.
"He doesn't have the technical skill or know how to make the bomb that almost killed you, or the other two, and short of who ever put him up for this he doesn't have any connections that could have given it to him either." Leon hates it when people use logic against him.
Angie took the cat man somewhere small and dark, there wasn't a repeat of the situation with Stephanie earlier but that's only because she prepared footage of the incident and played it for him. Unfortunately that was the limit to it, Miauler was contacted anonymously through letters written using cutouts from the Daily Adventurer Newspaper, picked up the explosives anonymously and then planted them secretly. They didn't even have the letter for finger marks, having already been burned, while the bomb didn't have them either, likely stemming from the very public announcement made by the royal police force about their methods during the duel fiasco.
Miauler's stunt however gave Angelica the chance to push through several reforms regarding exclusive servants.
"Although I do not currently intend to ban exclusive servants they also represent too great of a security risk to be allowed to operate as is as well." Was the basic summation Angelica gave. "They will have to pass through severe screening from now on, and if they assault any more students then their contracts will have to be revoked." As can be imagined Angelica's popularity was growing with the male students by the day. Conversely her popularity with the female students was low, not to the point that she was being accosted in the open, Stephanie's expensive cosmetic surgery treatment from the church was proof enough of what that would lead to.
The airbike race was officially cancelled, with the prize money being divided into the following four events prize pool. Having some time alone Angelica was doing paper work while Olivia was studying magic off to the side, or trying to, but the way that she kept looking up from her work told the young Duchess that there was something on her mind.
"Are you ready to talk now?" Angelica asked suspicious. "You ran off before I could refute Offrey's words I was afraid you already made up your mind."
"...why are you so nice to me Angie?" Olivia asked in a sad tone of voice.
"At first? Noblesse Oblige." Angelica stated simply, though she was aware that the layman wouldn't know what that means. "To use simpler terms 'those in power are obligated to aid those in need that are under them.' You are more than qualified for that need, it was only after that I clued in that you were the saintess candidate that Julius was supposed to be looking after." For once Angelica was glad that Julius wasn't doing his job. Olivia was a nice non-judgemental girl, but a less kind way of putting it was that she was a extreme doormat, she wouldn't be able to resist any of the stupid things that Julius would make her do to speak nothing of when he would push his affections too far and force himself onto her. She would be concerned about Olivia accidentally blasting Julius with strong affections for her but based on what happened with Marie and her own personal experiences Julius doesn't need the extra help being a stupid fool who pushes his feelings onto others without consideration for their circumstances or feelings. "Following that? You are one of the most genuinely kind people I've met, when I was going through a hard time you and Leon pulled me out of it, and of the two you are vastly less crass than he is."
"Then you wouldn't have befriended a commoner like me if I wasn't the Saintess's descendant?" Olivia asked sounding even more depressed than she did before.
"It's not that I'm unwilling, but I've been unable to until now." Angelica replied with a shrug of her shoulders. "Since the time I could walk I've been learning multiple languages, magic, swordsmanship, etiquette, ballroom dancing, administration and history." And pining after Julius, but if she keeps bringing that up it'll make her look obsessed. "What free time I did have I spent reading about various famous adventurers and on play dates with my father's vassal's children."
"That sounds like it was tough on you." Olivia gave a wince, especially remembering that those kids she went on play dates with were probably the same ones who betrayed her when Julius forced the duel through.
"Regarding my opinion on Commoners. Let me ask a question first, how much of my family history do you know?" Olivia shook her head by way of response. "Then I will tell you about the founder of the Redgrave family line. It is well known that my ancestor was that Saintess's sibling who followed them into Holfort's territory after her and aided the founding heirs in ending a civil war in the newly founded country." Angelica let out a sigh after that. "Less talked about was that he was the son of a farmer, and worse yet a Drunkard, drafted in Rochelle's navy. When it was learned whom it was that they were being sent to subdue he killed the captain of the ship and defected to Holfort's side, based on the stains on his personal journal it's commonly believed that he did so drunk." Olivia looked at Angie with a blank expression. "The point remains, even a commoner can have the drive and determination to become a seasoned adventurer should they choose to do so, which by the standards of this country also means they can become a noble too." Angie let out a sigh of exasperation. "Many of them would probably make better Nobles then the ones we have now." Angie made a sidelong glance at the door, at the girls behind it whose servants did not meet the cut of the standards that Angie had set. "At the very least I would expect them to be able to get dressed in the morning without help!" Angie gave that shout as she went back to doing paper work.
Review Section:
RED BELL: Good to know.
RonaldM40196867: I'm neutral either way.
RedRat8: Torturing fools for their stupidity is always good.