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The duel confirmed the victory of the verifying faction.

Now, let’s immediately grab the involved parties to sort out right from wrong, and make the loser grovel. This isn’t how we get results; instead, everyone is preparing for a party.

Oh, sure, you guys put on noble facades, but deep down, are you really more like savages or primitive types?

There are plenty of students seriously discussing whether the guy performed well or not, or how the girl could’ve won if she had targeted a specific spot.

They’re all dazzled by how strong and cool things are.

Are you guys just kids?

“Wow, I might actually get dessert for dinner after a long time.”

Well, yeah, I was a kid.

Victoria is also watching the tournament organizer preparing for the party next to her.

And this!

What Solindiges prepared. Right now, he’s calling Aurora over to explain what he did.

That’s why it doesn’t seem like he’s part of the faction fighting; he was inciting the duel from behind the scenes.

If he hadn’t, it might’ve just turned into a brawl, so he actually created an opportunity for them to compete within rules. And then there’s the winner and loser. He had both of them praised, setting things up to turn out like this now.

At the start, it was about proving who was better within the same faction, taking advantage of the relaxed atmosphere.

Looking at this, the prince is indeed a prince.

A future king.

Handling people is his job, after all. At the very least, this country won’t just collapse. Meanwhile, he’s also giving his little sister Aurora separate training on how she should handle things like this in the future.

But Aurora isn’t just some pushover either. She didn’t just receive training from Solindiges.

Aurora accused Solindiges of leaving the external matters to Kanna and neglecting them.

Looking back, it seems that Aurora started meeting Kanna frequently since she sided with the verifying faction.

Maybe because they both have the commonality of being harvesters, they got along pretty well.

But because of that, she often insults her older brother. And surprisingly, the barbs hit pretty hard on Solindiges.

At least as far as I know, Kanna and Aurora didn’t know about what Solindiges was plotting behind the scenes. I’ve never heard such information through the two harvesters.

However, it’s possible they deduced Solindiges’s hidden moves from the information available to them.

If they were talking to themselves or noted it down somewhere, I would’ve known.

But neither of them is the type to do that.

I don’t know what they’re thinking; I just feel what they feel.

Humans are complex.

So whether they followed the truth or drifted along without knowing it, Aurora stood on Kanna’s side and kept poking Solindiges.

Solindiges was genuinely flustered to the point of being ridiculous.

While Solindiges and Aurora had their sibling banter, a party was going on here.

The star of the party right now is the one who dueled.

People are gathering around, saying it was a fantastic fight, as if post-sporting event fan meetings happened.

Surprisingly, there are foreigners mixed in too.

Is it the raw appeal of being good at fighting that attracts people regardless of gender or age, or what?

Some are belittling the fact that a guy lost to a girl, or lamenting about how ridiculous that is.

But that’s just a small fraction.

Most are enjoying the merry festival.

Among those making complaints, they just didn’t understand the atmosphere. They’re a rarity, and the loser’s sob stories are just sounds made by a punching bag, right?

Around them, people are biting back.

It’s foolish to reveal negative emotions in front of the majority; that’s true for everyone, regardless of age or class.

It’s also shining in my memory that the only time it’s acceptable to show your emotions is when riling others up.

Using the contagiousness of feelings?

I wonder if it’s that easy.

The students who got it wrong argue with flimsy knowledge, saying it’s not their fault. But in this moment, facts aren’t the important thing.

They understand the information to blame others but fail to see that they’ve ruined the mood and made others feel bad.

And those kinds of kids faced the consequences.

They got mercilessly hit with verbal slaps, and some of the students caught in the crossfire even faced physical violence.

Cowardice was trampled on.

Yeah. It’s magnificent.

What’s magnificent isn’t just trampling cowardice.

It’s about covering cowardice with cowardice. It’s bad to hit someone just because they make for a good punchbag and not correct their wrongdoings.

Everyone makes mistakes, and there’s always a chance to set things right.

Labeling someone as a bad person means stripping them of that chance.

Kids are even more cruel in that regard.

Especially since it’s usually justified as a matter of justice, any wrongdoing belongs to the other side, making it all the worse. The younger someone is, the more they think any punishment dealt to a sinner is deserved.

They believe they are righteous, while the other side is wicked. It’s okay to do whatever it takes to deal with a villain. Because they’re villains, right?

The kid is pitifully getting beaten.

I just watched that unfold.

It’d be great to make that kid a harvester, but unfortunately, it doesn’t seem serious enough to warrant my intervention.

That hurt might sting, but it isn’t life-threatening.

Even if I did suddenly propose to turn him into a harvester, it’d look suspicious, asking why I was so focused on that.

It’s more important to hide my intentions of turning him into a harvester. So, I quietly pressed the Rabo in my bag.

“Hehehehe!”

A small chuckle echoed and then vanished.

Now, within this location, no one harbors jealousy towards anyone else. Everyone is united in joyful laughter.

When Rabo is used in a fun environment, it doesn’t stand out.

Without any sense of dissonance, emotions can be controlled.

Even the kid getting beaten managed to force a smile through his tears. His expression conveys no emotions.

Perhaps it’s because his feelings are scrambled.

Right now, he should be crying, but instead, he’s feeling joy.

However, only the one getting bullied senses that dissonance.

And then…

*Thwack!*

Yep. The fist that was pummeling his body just flew to his face. Joy sometimes amplifies actions dramatically. If you believe your actions are right and enjoyable, you demand even more stimulation for that joy.

Look at that!

He just punched his face!

There’s blood everywhere.

And the onlookers who were supposed to be watching the whole thing didn’t stop the violence but instead blocked the view.

It’s as if something important shattered within their hearts, prompting them to encourage the violence.

Rabo.

I can use it that way, huh? I’ve learned a good usage for it.

The one throwing punches lost restraint, while the one receiving them became unreadable in expression. Plus, it’s dark now, making it hard to see.

Looking at the girl who got bullied for saying something wrong, I can see she managed to escape; it seems the effect of Rabo is narrower than I thought.

Even the ears of the harvesters present heard the laughter from Rabo. But observing their normal functioning, it seems the range of Rabo’s effects is narrower than just sound.

I’d better be careful next time I use it.

That aside, there’s a kid getting seriously beaten.

If I press Rabo one more time, it looks like both the one attacking and the one getting attacked will break down, should I press it again?

I’m experimenting to see if it stacks.

“What are you doing?”

Just then, Victoria came over, holding a plate with something resembling cake bread in one hand.

My eyes were automatically drawn to the bread in Victoria’s hand. If it were a typical person, they’d likely collapse from blood sugar shock. It’s more than half sugar, after all.

But ever since using her psychic powers, Victoria has been eating like crazy. Even if her blood vessels burst. Well…

If it’s a water-controlling ability, it’s simply solvable.

So instead of answering, I pointed at the scene of violence.

Victoria looked over there. Meanwhile, the bread spontaneously decomposed and started making its way into her mouth.

Wait, what?

Doesn’t Victoria have powers for making things float, not water?

Looking closely, thin ice fragments seem to be wrapped around a floaty piece.

I really don’t understand what she’s trying to do.

After chewing a few bites of that, Victoria looked back at me, asking, “Who’s the bad one?”

“The boy getting beaten insulted the one who dueled, and the crowd that heard it hit him.”

“So that’s a lynch mob, huh.”

And then she went back to munching on the sugar-laden bread.

Meanwhile, the kid kept getting bloodied. Is she just going to sit back and watch?

To uphold the image of what she thinks I ought to be, I should probably step in. Also, Kanna’s watching me from afar.

Maintaining a consistent image is important. I’ve been to Bern City before, where people were dying.

And it’d look odd for me to ignore a kid like that.

So I started to walk over to intervene.

Or rather, I intended to walk.

But as soon as I took a step, that chilling sensation gripped my arms and legs.

Looking down, I saw thick balls of water had formed like handcuffs around me.

“It’s fine not to step in.”

I looked at Victoria’s face. She wore a look of annoyance as she pointed at two students who seemed to be fourth, if not third-graders, approaching from different sides.

When they arrived, they scolded the student there. Then they took the beaten kid with them.

Potential harvesters!

After being so wrecked, it wouldn’t be strange if they turned him into a harvester!

Acts of healing can appear noble at first glance, so while claiming peace, the plans to forcibly stifle anger have now drifted bleakly away.

“What was the reason for stopping it?”

“There’s really no need to earn any enemies.”

And just like that, the water cuffs wrapping around my limbs disappeared.

In that case.

“Yeah. Let’s talk about having dessert for dinner, then?”

“Hey, don’t act like a mom in a place like this!”

She scrunched her face in disgust. But if the wrong situation arises, it only takes a moment for the atmosphere to shift. I have a fleeting doubt about whether a harvester could crumble that much, but who knows?