Nia Liston: The Merciless Maiden Volume 8 (eBook)

Umikaze Minamino (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
250 Seiten
J-Novel Club (Verlag)
978-1-7183-1784-0 (ISBN)

Infos

With the preliminaries over, it's time for the main event to finally begin! As the excitement within Altoire reaches its peak, tension builds between Nia's students-but they're not the only formidable competition in this tournament!
Underneath the surface, the leaders of the underworld congregate, playing a money game that could completely alter the landscape of their shadowy world. Anzel knows that those living in the shadows do not belong in the light, but even as he begins to accept the fate thrust upon him by Kaffes's ten billion kram bet, he finds himself drawn to the one remaining possibility left to him to take his life back.
Meanwhile, King Hyurence notices Nia for her detailed thoughts on each of the matches, and asks her to commentate on the whole event! But watching isn't enough to sate her hunger-this Merciless Maiden can't resist taking her own little bite!

Textauszug

Chapter 1: Before the Matches

“The preliminaries have now ended. I congratulate you all on your efforts.” King Hyurence announced the official end of the tournament preliminaries on magivision.

“I’m so exhausted...”

I was watching the broadcast in my dorm room with Reliared, who had sullenly groaned of her exhaustion like an old woman tired of life. She did look tired. A full evening of rest apparently hadn’t been enough to cure her fatigue.

“I’m tired too,” I agreed. The preliminaries had been filled with recordings and interviews. That punishing schedule had only ended yesterday. The last week had been especially horrible—of course we felt like we’d aged fifty years.

Hell, even I was tired; an actual child must have been feeling it much worse than I was. I’d heard the girls had been allowed reasonable time off...but honestly, I doubted it helped much.

Everyone worked hard. Bendelio deserved a punch in the face. That was all that mattered.

“Oh right, where’s your attendant?” Reliared asked. She hadn’t been here for quite a while, so she hadn’t realized Lynokis wasn’t around. Reliared’s attendant should’ve known about Lynokis’s absence, but apparently she hadn’t informed her ward. It made sense—Reliared and Lynokis didn’t have a direct relationship.

“She had a family emergency she had to return home for.”

“Oh no, did something bad happen?”

“I haven’t heard the details. For all I know, it could be that someone in her family found a treasure trove of gold and they’re having an emergency family meeting about it.”

“A treasure trove? Like someone’s hidden wealth? Man... I wish.”

As did I. I didn’t have much interest in money, but it would be useful to have.

We let the king’s broadcast run as we chatted. His Majesty was discussing the upcoming schedule, the new accommodations being built to help house more tourists, the restrictions on people visiting the tournament island...

“The losers’ matches will soon begin. I hope you continue to enjoy the tournament.”

...and then the crushing reality that our days of recording would continue.

“Ugh, I wanna reeeeest. I don’t wanna go to schoooooool.”

I very much felt the same, but we couldn’t just skip.

After the king’s explanation came Wolkas with more details. Once he was done, we turned off the MagiPad and stood up.

We had school to go to.

Due to our recording for the tournament, we hadn’t been able to attend classes for a whole week. Our work had been a request from the country itself, so we’d been given special permission. We would attend classes today and tomorrow, and then go right into recording for the losers’ matches.

We had been told we could rest if we wanted, but Reliared and I had both chosen to attend. It was the duty of the citizens of Altoire to attend school. As nobles, Reliared and I had to be role models for the people, living our lives in exemplary ways. At least...that was what we had been taught.

I was fine with it, but it was a difficult pill for Reliared to swallow. This was too much for a child.

“Nia! Relia!”

One minute, all of our classmates were surrounding us to talk about the tournament, and the next, it was time for lunch—and that was when a senior student came calling.

“Look! It’s Kikirira!”

It was in fact Kikirira Amon of the junior production crew, that lively young girl. The moment our classmates realized who had come to see us, they all excitedly swarmed her instead.

“Yup, yup! It sure is me!”

I hadn’t seen her for a while and now she was suddenly a superstar. She’d been appearing on magivision as an interviewer for the tournament, so more people were starting to recognize her, enough that she’d become quite popular herself.

Well, you know, I thought it normal that our classmates would be much more excited to meet Kikirira, whom they’d rarely get the opportunity to talk to rather than Reliared and me, who were around all the time. We didn’t share a building with the middle school kids, after all.

“I felt a bit conflicted seeing her on magivision at first, but now I’m kinda grateful,” Reliared said with a sigh.

As someone in the same position, I understood how she felt. The magivision industry was in essence a popularity contest. Each broadcasting station and us girls had all been concerned about our popularity in our bid to gain more viewers. The junior broadcasting station would naturally be the same.

The rise of a new popular figure meant another person to potentially steal our popularity—we were competitors, so to speak. It meant that there was a part of us that didn’t want to welcome her with open arms...

But things were different now. The more of us there were, the less a single person was asked to handle. Given how busy we were right now, we were thankful for the opportunity to split up our work—really thankful.

“Is something wrong?” Even though Kikirira had been the one to call out to us, she was so focused on the children that we had to walk over instead.

“Oh, yeah. Miss Hilde’s calling you guys. Mind coming?”

Ah, probably a meeting to discuss the losers’ matches.

“If you’re the one who came to get us, does that mean the junior crew is participating as well?” Reliared asked.

Kikirira nodded. “Apparently. It was a shame we weren’t allowed to help with the preliminaries, but it does sound like we’re allowed to get involved with the losers’ rounds. We’ve not heard the details yet, though.”

Honestly? I was all for it. It would help lower our workload.

When the three of us arrived at the cafeteria... Oh, there’s so many people here.

Around ten students were gathered in a corner where some tables had been pushed together. There was Hildetaura and the members of the junior production crew, including Josecotte Coiz, who had been an interviewer alongside Kikirira.

With so many active participants in magivision together, the other students couldn’t help but watch us. We were all familiar with each other, but there was one unexpected face.

“What? Young Master Neal?”

Yes, my brother was present. He was as beautiful as he always was. Reliared looked overjoyed at the unexpected run-in.

“Sit wherever you would like.”

We did as Hildetaura said.

“We do not have a lot of time, so we will skip our greetings for now.”

Good. Time was precious when it came to our lunch break and there were so many people here that it would take a lot of time for everyone to speak. Besides, this wasn’t our first time meeting together. We all knew this was just a work meeting.

“Please eat your lunch while you listen. First, about the losers’ matches...” Hildetaura gave a brief overview of how the losers’ matches would be structured. Incidentally, this had all been discussed in the broadcast this morning, so we had no need to hide it. In other words, it didn’t matter if those around us heard.

“Nia, Relia, and I will continue with recordings as usual, but our evenings will be free. It should hopefully make things less exhausting from now on. Even the staff were starting to complain that it was too much work for children.”

I fully agreed with them. There were always those evil adults who wanted nothing more than to work children to the bone. Right, Bendelio?! What do you think about this, huh?! I imagine you’ve never even considered this, right?!

“This is where the junior production crew will come in. Unlike the preliminaries, the losers’ matches will take place from evening until night. They will all be held in the capital, so you will be able to participate as airship travel will be unnecessary.”

Ah, now I understood. They were being told they needed to work after school. Honestly...that was kind of rough in its own way. But the people who would have to do it looked entirely motivated. The resentment at not being allowed to record prelims must’ve been building up.

But the three of us already knew recording for anything related to the tournament was exceedingly tough. How long would these happy faces last? They would probably look withered in just three days.

“Allow me to say this first,” I said, finding an opportunity to talk between Hildetaura’s explanations. “What you all need isn’t a temporary burst of motivation, it’s lasting motivation. Relax a little and approach this like you’ll be working long-term. If you don’t, you’ll burn yourself out.”

My sisters-in-arms Reliared and Hildetaura were nodding emphatically in agreement. Only those who had experienced that same hell could truly understand. Though...I couldn’t be sure whether this message actually got through to the junior crew. It didn’t look as if my words resonated with them in any way. People learn a lot from their mistakes, but until that first failure, we’re always so overconfident in ourselves.

Now, I didn’t think that in and of itself was a problem. But if they failed here, the ones who would have to clean up after them were us magivision...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 18.12.2025
• Reihe/Serie: Nia Liston: The Merciless Maiden
• Illustrationen: Katana Canata
• Übersetzer: okaykei
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• Schlagworte: epic fantasy female protagonist • genius main character • Light Novel • Magic • OP overpowered protagonist • quest for strength • Reincarnation
• ISBN-10: 1-7183-1784-0 / 1718317840
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7183-1784-0 / 9781718317840