Chapter 118: What Grace Wayne Endures (7)

She has no way of knowing the original or her own character’s weaknesses, but each time she fails, each time she works hard so as not to fail next, her own weakness is thrust at her.

Ah. Why. From that day a year ago, at crucial scenes it does not go well.

From that day all gears do not mesh. No, no, conversely it even seems the gears clicked and started moving.

What had been going well until now is the irregular, and failing continuously like this is myself. She ends up thinking that kind of thing.

"Well, un... this time I read in a newspaper club article what kind of Monster Villain ran wild. There is also information there is a guy who misused it. Therefore that I will not say don’t mind it but."

"Wrong, higu, wrong... I, I..."

Hesitantly she vomits her own heart.

That she worked hard, that everyone believes in her, that she thinks it is happy so she wants to answer.

And yet she cannot answer that at all.

Because she fails this much, fails, fails. She cannot forgive herself most who is smearing mud on everyone’s trust.

Even now it is so. Thanks to being saved I made it, yet at the very end I misjudged and was shamed. Involving even Niekawa who saved me.

I cannot help hating that kind of myself.

Niekawa did not immediately answer those words.

He does not declare it victim delusion, nor comfort that is hard, he chews Grace’s words and thinks what he should return.

Answering the other party’s seriousness with seriousness is manners. Then if the other party is seriously sad this side too must return words seriously.

"...Working desperately hard for everyone, for someone. That cannot possibly be a bad thing. Even if at times results do not come out."

The man named Niekawa Kazuki has only recently met the girl named Grace Wayne. Facing and talking is today the first.

But she is a conspicuous person. He heard from a club senpai the story that a blonde foreigner, a well-styled beauty swaying large vertical rolls transferred.

Because the school year is also different detailed information does not reach his ears, but even so there are things that transmit.

Her confidence-filled attitude seems driven more by an obsession that she must be that way than her true self.

He will not deny that itself. Disciplining herself to be a leader and advancing forward with ambition cannot possibly be a bad thing.

She has probably raised herself that way, and from hearing that even though she just transferred she is already a central figure in class, her effort is by no means wasted.

"But this might be national character... Wayne-senpai of course and Lott too seem unused to the act of relying on someone. Rather, are they not even thinking that borrowing someone’s power for things they cannot do with only their own power is sinful?"

"That is..."

It is fact.

Because Grace Wayne is a Sacred.

Compared to normal people she possesses much magical power of light, and holds a more splendid status than normal people.

Precisely because of that she must protect powerless people with these hands. The reverse cannot be fine.

Of course a little earlier she borrowed Atel Octo’s power. She was saved by him.

That itself she thinks is welcome, and she is also grateful that thanks to that she could save her younger brother.

But equally there is a heart that thinks this is no good as is.

I am the side that saves, not the side that is saved.

Because I have power. Because I have this power I was chosen as a Sacred and am praised by Calmate people.

And yet the one who should save someone being saved by someone is topsy-turvy.

"No matter how excellent a person they cannot become perfect, so they fail. Don’t mind causing a little trouble, rely as you like. And look at me, as you see I am a junk full of defects, an existence who cannot live without relying on someone."

"What are you saying!"

She involuntarily cuts off Niekawa’s words.

Those self-mocking words grated far more than being slighted herself. Even if the one who put them in his mouth is the person himself she does not want to acknowledge it and has no intention of acknowledging it.

"You denied it, but the figure of standing against for a person you owe a debt to shone. Precisely that, I felt it as light like a Sacred...!"

"Thank you. I myself want to be that way. I think that."

The face of him who muttered that looked terribly lonely.

"But I... no matter how much I struggle I am a powerless human, and I cannot become light like the Sacred. The feeling that I have trained this much so I will at least buy time was overturned not by Monster Villains or Magician Diabolic but by the likes of combatants the Sacred easily defeat. If Atel Octo had not appeared, one reckless youngster would have become a corpse."

That was not self-loathing self-abasement but a pure fact.

Regardless of daily training or not, the boy named Niekawa Kazuki is desperately lacking in physical specs just from being an Earth-born male.

And Niekawa is aware of that. The fact that among mind technique body, body is missing at a level individual effort cannot do anything about.

"...It is frustrating that even if I try I cannot reach, it is hard to act thinking I want to do something and be able to do nothing. There are suffering people, there is a girl around my age fighting while being wounded, there is a champion of justice protecting that while trembling... and yet with my sword no matter how I struggle I cannot save. Why can I do nothing."

"That is."

Grace is learning the sword as a Sacred.

With a combination of the contracted Spirit and vast magical power of light, even taking a tactic of scattering flame and enhancement while being protected by other Sacred she can sufficiently contribute to victory. Precisely because she has specs that can sufficiently be active as a Sacred without doing hard training yet never neglected training, she understands.

Niekawa Kazuki. If he had been born in Calmate he would never have become like this.

If he had possessed even a slight magical power of light he would not have lost to combatants.

He would not obtain combat ability to Sacred degree, but he would have fought even Monster Villains with a trained body and technique, not just combatants.

But he is Earth-born and does not harbor magical power in his body.