Is it wrong to become a scumbag?

Tsukasa always felt Arisuin was suspicious. Even though Arisuin tried to hide it with perfume, he could tell that a bloody smell emitted from his body.

Usually, a soldier, a doctor, or even a mage-knight would have such a smell, yet Arisuin’s identity wasn’t any of them. Instead, he was a student, so how did he get such a bloody smell?

If Tsukasa had to answer, Aruisuin had two identities, one was a student, and the other was an assassin. In his previous world, such a character only appeared in manga or light novels, but in this world, he didn’t feel surprised somehow. The Blazers’ ability was just too buggy in this world.

Arisuin’s ability was shadow manipulation. He could enter and come out from the shadow as long as he wanted to. In other words, this was the perfect ability for an assassination.

Yet when Tsukasa saw Aruisuin’s smile when Arisuin was with Shizuku, Ikki, and everyone, he knew that this smile was coming from his heart. It was real, and it wasn’t something like an act or something. It was something genuine, so he thought Arisuin might retire from his job, so he could live a normal life.

After all, the future of the Blazers was obvious, and it was to become a mage-knight.

The Blazer was uncommon, and the majority of people in the world were normal people, so if a Blazer was born, they would become a mage-knight since they could give security to the country. On the other hand, those Blazers were also happy to serve the country, considering they got a stable and high-paying jobs. The only thing they had to be careful of was that they could die anytime in this type of job.

However, such a thing was rare, considering how overwhelming the existence of the Blazers was in this world.

As long as they had become Blazers, they were simply invincible. It might seem doubtful, but those small fries that Tsukasa could defeat with just a flick of his finger were an existence that normal people couldn’t defy. After all, whether it was a knife, firearm, or even a bomb was useless to them. Knowing all of that, how could a normal person be able to defeat them?

Anyway, what he wanted to say was that with such power, it was possible for a Blazer to do many things. It was also perfectly normal for someone to enter an assassin organization. Instead, he had seen many terrorist groups, crime groups, and even an underground fighting arena.

An assassin group was nothing special, really.

Tsukasa thought Arisuin had retired and just wanted to have a peaceful high school life, yet he felt this wasn’t as simple as it seemed. He felt someone was weaving a thread of conspiracy around them. He wasn’t sure who the main conspirator was, but he could tell that Arisuin was part of this conspiracy.

Still, unexpectedly, when Tsukasa talked to “The Icy Laughter” Mikoto Tsuruya, he also knew there was also a new student who had become the candidate for the Seven Stars Sword Art Festival. The name of this student was Amane Shinomiya, and what was even more surprising was his record since all of his fights were won without fighting his opponents.

In other words, Amane won without lifting his hands.

While this was weird, it might be part of Amane’s power, and somehow Tsukasa also had a feeling the strange thing that happened previously might also happen because of Amane.

Previously, Tsukasa had asked Kagami to collect information about the candidates from all the schools that would participate in the Seven Stars Sword Art Festival. However, he didn’t bother to ask it again in the past since he used most of his time to train with Nangou, and everyone, yet somehow, he started to feel weird by his action since it felt like he was guided to forget what he was going to ask.

This time, Tsukasa didn’t delay his request and asked Kagami to search whether there was something weird that had happened at this year’s Seven Stars Sword Art Festival. The first thing he asked was about the candidates from all the schools. He wasn’t sure whether she could find something, but when he ate dinner in the cafeteria, he looked around and found that Arisuin was nowhere to be seen.

However, suddenly, Tsukasa got an SOS signal from Kagami, which made his expression serious.

“Tsukasa? What’s wrong?” Stella noticed something strange about Tsukasa, but she saw he didn’t answer and just ran somewhere. She was confused, but everyone in the cafeteria was also confused, so they decided to follow him, wondering what was happening.

—

“This! This!”

Kagami opened her eyes wide when she saw the list of representatives in every school in this country. He realized that there was something weird and a certain force had invaded the school!

Before, Kagami felt Tsukasa was slightly too cautious, especially when he thought a certain someone might be a spy. After all, she had a good relationship with this person, but he knew Tsukasa wouldn’t say anything irresponsible. She was also quite curious about Amane Shinomiya, whose name was mentioned by Tsukasa.

However, when Kagami found out everything, her heart was frightened. She wondered what would happen if they were able to succeed with their plan, and Tsukasa didn’t remind her.

‘I-I need to tell him!’

“Kagami, you’re too smart…”

Hearing this helpless voice, Kagami quickly stood up and turned around. She saw Arisuin was there, coming out from the shadow as usual. “Alice…” Her brows frowned, and she asked, “Why did you do this?!” Her hand moved to her skirt, trying to make someone notice the danger that was about she faced.

Arisuin didn’t answer her question. Instead, he shook his head and said, “If you aren’t too smart, then we can play a friend for a while…” He didn’t say much nonsense and stabbed Kagami’s shadow so she wouldn’t be able to escape. He then raised her dagger and was about to stab her, but suddenly the door of the room was broken into pieces directly.

“Huh?!”

Arisuin was stunned, and when he turned, he felt his entire body was cold as if he had seen a god of death. “Wa-Wait…!” However, Tsukasa’s figure suddenly appeared in front of him in a blink. He couldn’t say anything, and suddenly the hand which held the dagger flew away. He lost his right arm after it was cut cleanly by Tsukasa. He was in a daze for a while before he screamed in pain.

Tsukasa ignored Arisuin and walked to Kagami. He used the power of absorption and brought Kagami to his side.

Arisuin was so scared at that moment since he knew one wrong word, his head would be flying. He wasn’t sure when he had angered Tsukasa, but he knew he was facing a demon.

“Tsukasa!”

Stella, Touka, Shizuku, Ikki, and many others quickly came to Kagami’s room, but they were stunned by what they had seen since they saw Arisuin only had one arm.

However, Arisuin raised his hand and even bowed his head. “I-I gave up. Don’t kill me.”

“……”