Chapter 101. Dinner Time
The speeches were just as boring as Rhys dreaded they would be. He didn’t even need to sleep any more as a mage, and he still fell asleep a half-dozen times during the ceremonies. Eventually, Bast nudged him awake, and he followed Bast up to the stage to receive second place, which was a silver medal and a small sum of gold. Laurent stood awkwardly beside them to take bronze, refusing to make eye contact with either of them. Whether that was because he’d finally clued on to the Empress’s plans, or because he’d figured out Rina’s true identity, Rhys didn’t know, but it was awkward standing there next to someone he knew would soon be his sworn enemy. At least Laurent had washed his hair and put on a new uniform, so he wasn’t rocking the two-tone red-white look, though honestly, Rhys wasn’t sure it was an upgrade. He’d been pulling it off, and who didn’t like two-tone hair, at the end of the day? Sure, it’d been a weird stripe of red horizontally bisecting his head just behind the bangs, which was a weird place to put a chunk of red hair, but it was better than the all-white look. Then again, it did kind of turn Laurent from a tampon into a used one, so…
Rhys coughed, suddenly unable to unsee the Empress’s whole army as a giant pack of tampons. Her boat looked like a tampon ad in his eyes, suddenly, all the soldiers standing up stock-straight at the rails of the boat. Ah, the eternal struggle of all-white designs. That, and doing anything in an all-white costume was a nightmare. Eating? Nope. Drinking? Better be water. Sitting? Check the chair first, and don’t even think about the floor. The only thing worse than an all-white design was a design in white satin. At least most fabrics didn’t stain when they got wet, unlike satin, the hellbeast that it was. He still held a grudge against a certain RUBY series and his female friend’s obsession with the magical girl from it that wore all white. Why was she shiny white? Why did her dress only look good in satin? Why did the creators of that series hate him on a personal level? All questions he could never discover the answers to.
Bast glanced at him, raising a questioning brow behind his mask at Rhys’s cough. Rhys waved his hand subtly. It was just him being silly, not a serious cough.
The ceremonies concluded, and they were shuffled off the stage for the Tier 3 competitors to take the stage. Ev had taken second place under a swordsman. As for Tier 1, Walter had come in third. Rhys didn’t recognize any of the Tier 3 or 1 competitors aside from Ev and Walter, so he clapped politely like everyone else when they took the stage and were handed their medals.
There were another few speeches, all by pompous members of the teaching staff at Purple Dawn. One of them even apologized for the Schoolmaster not being there, at which Rhys rolled his eyes. Couldn’t even see it to the end, that guy. He sure hoped that Purple Dawn’s Schoolmaster had some grand plan that he was working on this whole time, and that was why he wasn’t here, but he was pretty sure the guy was just a coward and didn’t want to risk his life even a little bit. It wouldn’t be so bad if he’d at least evacuated his school first, but it seemed like Purple Dawn’s Schoolmaster believed in ‘every man for himself’ as much as most mages around here seemed to. Oh, Rhys was sure there would be a last-second evacuation order, and the Schoolmaster would turn out to have been innocently on vacation this whole time, unwinding and totally unaware of anything going on back home, what do you mean he wasn’t present for the tournament?—but he wasn’t going to buy it. He’d seen that kind of face-saving bullshit play out a million times back in his home world, and honestly, he was tired of it. He’d rather take a leader who owned up to getting the hell out of dodge over one who lied and pretended they just ‘happened’ to be elsewhere any day. At least the first leader admitted they’d done wrong and basically gave up any chance at ever being a leader again, as they should, because someone that cowardly should never be a leader. The second one still thought they had a chance, and that pissed Rhys off more than anything else, not least because somehow, despite all logic, reasoning, and morality, that second leader was right, and sometimes idiots would fall for their transparent lie and reelect them.
Not that Schoolmasters were elected, but still. He’d rather have someone who owned up to their mistakes over someone who lied their way out of them, any day. Unless Purple Dawn’s Schoolmaster had a rock-solid reason to abandon his school to the Empire, the guy was quickly moving to Rhys’s permanent shit list. He held grudges. He was trashy like that.
At last, it was time for the food to come out. Rhys had slumped down in his seat again, on the verge of drifting off, but he sat bolt upright at the scent of delicious food. The first course was a delicious lemony chicken soup, one with a mysteriously silky broth. Every bite warmed Rhys to the core, and invigorated his newly-formed vitality-soaked body. The tomato had been obvious, an absolute blast of vitality, so much so that it had hurt. This food was subtle, a warm trickle that quietly boosted every part of his body without harming him or posing any risk of harm, but for all that it was subtle, the vitality contained within it was no less pure or powerful than the tomato had been. No… it might have been more powerful, if all he looked at was the purity and strength of the vitality in the food, and disregarded the small quantity this soup contained. If he hadn’t already imbued his body with the vitality from the tomato, he could have attempted the same here. The primary difference was that this soup held far less vitality than the tomato, so he could only strengthen a tiny amount of his body with it, whereas the tomato had held such a huge quantity of vitality that he’d almost harmed himself eating two of them.
There were still many courses yet to come. Rhys finished his soup, licked his lips, and sat back, waiting for the next course. So far, his experiences with imbuing food with mana were limited to cheap tricks for the potato chips, and borderline harmful techniques for the tomatoes. This delicate, subtle, yet powerful food prickled his mind, drawing forth the possibilities of magical cooking. For now, all he needed were cheap tricks, but in the future, maybe he could pursue the path of magical cooking, just for fun and deliciousness? What was more trashy than pursuing a random path for hedonism’s sake, after all? And food was supposedly the way to a lady’s heart, not that he would know. But maybe in the future, it would be a good thing to have in his back pocket.
It would have to wait until he figured out how to survive in the Empire and then how to release Straw, but it was something to consider, if he ever came upon a block of free time. Of course, it was outside of his path, so it wouldn’t do much for him in general, but who knew? Maybe he could find a way to bring it into his path. Or maybe he’d just pick up some bonus skills for fun. That was an option, wasn’t it? Everything didn’t have to be dead-focused on his path. He could take some time and work on other skills.
Can I? Rhys wondered, as the next dish appeared in front of him. Salad this time, a big pile of rabbit food. Wrinkling his nose, he took a bite of the crunchy salad to be polite, and almost died from how delicious it was. Leaves were not supposed to taste this good. They had taken lead, and transmuted it to gold. Not only that, but some of these herbs and plants were clearly medicinal. Their power washed through his body, opening his mana passages and unblocking choke points as they scoured away impurities. Rhys pulled the impurities they lifted out of his body into his core and piled them up there in preparation for the next trash star, but nonetheless, it was good to see his body refined, and the impurities put to use, rather than rotting away in the wrong part of his body.