Never Die Villain

Tristan looked up before casually pushing himself back to his feet, brushing the dirt from his uniform as he took in the scene around him.

This was certainly a surprising turn of events.

Only a few minutes ago, more than ten students had been surrounding Ilya and bombarding him from every direction, and now the hunted had become the hunter.

Tristan glanced at the identification seal around his wrist.

[Total Points: 157]

One hundred and fifty-seven points was certainly a lot, enough that Tristan was confident he would have been near the top of the test under ordinary circumstances, but he was equally certain that Ilya had accumulated more.

He didn’t know the exact number, since the identification seals only displayed their owner’s score, but after watching Ilya spend most of the examination moving across the hunting field and eliminating beasts before anyone else could reach them, it would have been stranger if his score wasn’t higher.

To maintain his position at the top, Tristan had to knock Ilya out of the competition.

It wasn’t merely a matter of pride, per se, nor did Tristan particularly care about the complaints of the students whose kills Ilya had taken.

The test was a competition, and if another student had found a method that allowed him to accumulate points more efficiently than everyone else, complaining about fairness would have been ridiculous.

Tristan had simply responded in the most practical way available to him.

There had been no rule preventing students from attacking one another, and breaking an identification seal would immediately remove its owner from the field.

If Ilya really was holding the highest score, eliminating him before the examination ended would be far more practical than wasting the remaining time trying to surpass him through hunting alone.

At least, that had been the plan.

"Is that telekinesis, Ilya Belozersky?"

"Probably."

Tristan watched as another student was thrown across the forest without Ilya appearing to cast anything.

Whatever ability Ilya was using had completely destroyed the advantage Tristan had built around him.

Coordinating more than ten first-years had already been troublesome enough, but keeping them organized had become impossible when they were being knocked apart by something none of them could see.

Telekinesis was the obvious explanation.

It would explain how Ilya had been moving through the air throughout the examination, and it would also explain the invisible force that had struck Tristan earlier.

What Tristan couldn’t understand was how someone who had only recently reached the First Circle could use telekinesis with enough force to throw several people around while still having enough mana to continue casting ordinary spells.

There were too many things about Ilya that didn’t make sense.

Tristan had known who Ilya Valentinovich Belozersky was long before either of them entered Holy Trinity Academy.

It would have been difficult not to when both of them belonged to Grand Ducal families, and over the years they had crossed paths at Imperial banquets, ceremonies, and other gatherings where the Empire’s highest nobility inevitably found themselves in the same room.

Back then, Ilya had never been a mage.

Yet less than a year after beginning his magical education, that same person was now standing across from him after breaking through the First Circle and displaying abilities Tristan couldn’t immediately understand.

"Now then."

Ilya smiled.

"Where were we?"

Tristan’s attention returned to him.

"Apparently at the part where you start showing off."

"Showing off?" Ilya glanced toward one of the students still lying several meters away. "But you brought an entire group after me."

"Haha."

Mana began circulating through his body again.

The students around them were no longer useful.

Several were still recovering from Ilya’s attacks. Others had backed away after realizing they couldn’t defend themselves against whatever invisible force he was controlling, and trying to reorganize them would only give Ilya more time to attack.

So Tristan abandoned the formation entirely.

"Everyone, leave him."

Several students looked toward him in confusion.

"What?"

"You heard me." Tristan kept his attention on Ilya. "Go back to hunting. You’re not going to accomplish anything here anymore."

Tristan ignored the complaints that followed.

There was no point in holding on to a failed strategy merely because he had spent time setting it up, and continuing to throw students at Ilya after he had demonstrated an easy way to scatter them would accomplish nothing.

The entire operation had been a failure, and Tristan was reasonable enough to recognize when there was no longer anything to gain from continuing it.

He had learned plenty, at least.

"This was an excellent learning experience, Ilya Belozersky."

Tristan turned around as though that settled everything and began walking away, apparently having decided that surrendering the attempt was preferable to wasting any more time on it.

There were still points to gather before the test ended, and with one hundred and fifty-seven already accumulated, returning to the actual objective of the test seemed more productive than continuing a fight whose original purpose had already been lost.

He made it three steps.

"Where do you think you’re going, asshole?"

"...."

Tristan stopped and glanced back over his shoulder, finding Ilya staring at him from where he had left him.

Rather than looking particularly concerned about being stopped, Tristan seemed more bothered by the way Ilya had addressed him.

"Such crude language. As expected of a northerner who only knows how to swing a sword around. Oh, but in your case, I suppose you couldn’t even manage that."

Normally, Ilya might have responded.

He might have insulted Tristan back, laughed it off, or decided that continuing this entire confrontation was more trouble than it was worth.

The ambush had already failed.

Nobody had managed to seriously injure him, and there was still plenty of time left in the examination for him to return to hunting magical beasts.

But Ilya remained where he was.

Something Tristan had said earlier had been bothering him.

"...I think I understand."

Tristan stopped turning away.

Ilya looked toward the students scattered throughout the forest, several of whom were already preparing to leave now that Tristan had called off the attack.

None of them had seemed particularly hesitant when they decided to join an organized attempt to eliminate him from the examination, and even after learning that the person they were attacking was Ilya Belozersky, they had continued anyway.

It wasn’t only them.

The more Ilya thought about it, the more familiar the pattern became.

"I’ve been wondering why people keep doing this."

Tristan turned his head slightly. "Doing what?"

"Messing with me."

Ilya’s voice had lost the joking tone from earlier.

"I don’t bother anyone unless they bother me first. I don’t go around throwing my family name at people, I don’t threaten anyone who pisses me off, and most of the time, when someone talks shit about me, I just ignore it because I genuinely don’t care."

He looked directly at Tristan.

"But I think that’s the problem."

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