I Beca the Academy's Pink Airhead - Chapter 24
It was during my 1st year, not long after enrolling.
The day after I had gone to search for randomly appearing dungeon gates in the northern wilderness but ca up empty-handed.
I finally returned to school after receiving one ether ore that Hilde had given after conquering a dungeon.
-This is paynt for fighting together. So stop clinging to .
The wind was cool in the dawn morning. As I faced that wind, pulling my bicycle through the old main gate of , there were people to welco .
Three 3rd year seniors standing in front of the main gate, bathed in the early morning sunlight. The only students attending approached in a group with worried expressions.
“…!”
“Clara!”
“Good heavens! How many days were you gone?”
“Look at the dust on your face!”
“Nina~ Bring a wet towel from the room~”
“Eeh… Why again?”
“Hurry!”
“…”
The seniors had such ordinary appearances that it was hard to rember their faces even after not seeing them for a few days. When I returned with a disheveled appearance in the morning sun, they tried to wash my face with handkerchiefs.
And looking at , who refused to wear ’s female uniform and wandered around only in a tracksuit, the seniors said:
“Clara is cute but so strange… Always just wandering around in a tracksuit.”
“…”
That’s how a day at began.
The three 3rd year seniors took my hand and walked with through the old, shabby school grounds, chattering about trivial things.
They weren’t particularly focused on studying.
They weren’t particularly devoted to fighting.
They weren’t particularly interested in the incidents happening in this academy city.
Just…
They were just really ordinary students.
“…”
These were probably the seniors that the ‘Clara’ in the ga said she respected.
『Yes―♪ They were really good people☆ The mories of those tis are still like jewels to ―☆』
“…”
They were people who would go sowhere in a year anyway.
And since they weren’t people who helped beco stronger, I didn’t really participate in conversations with them.
I was determined to beco stronger to prove myself, following the long-cherished desire from my past life. For , only exchanges with future strong ones and intense training were true daily life.
‘…Since hell knows who sent to another world as they pleased, I’ll live as I please.’
Regardless of my thoughts, they were chattering away.
“Listen! There was a really touching story among the lunchti broadcast stories played by the Press Departnt yesterday!”
“Aah… What a sha. I was taking a nap so I couldn’t hear it.”
“Ugh… I always apply for that but why don’t they ever pick ?”
“Nina, you always just write a bunch of stories about food.”
“There’s no one who isn’t happy eating pancakes to their heart’s content…”
“Sheesh, you pig.”
“Uuugh… So an.”
“Really~! I said I’d tell you a touching story―!”
“When Frida speaks, the story goes off on a tangent and becos boring.”
“…Uhihi. That’s right, that’s right… Yaaawn.”
“Yaaawn…”
They say yawning is contagious.
The seniors kept yawning as they continued talking.
“Yawn… Getting up early is really tiring…”
“Shh―!”
“…”
Frida unconsciously looking at and cautioning her friends.
It seems getting up early wasn’t their usual lifestyle pattern.
I realized then that the seniors had gotten up early to welco .
‘…No wonder it was strange that the leisurely seniors were always up when I ca back after being out all night.’
Although I hadn’t particularly developed feelings of affection for them even now, sohow I felt sorry for them waiting for my return every morning.
“…”
For the first ti since enrolling, I joined in their conversation. Fortunately or not… I was able to speak in Clara language filtered through the pretty filter, not in the blunt tone inside my heart.
“Um… seniors☆”
“…Yes?”
“Huh?”
“Hmm?”
“Ahaha―☆ Um… You don’t have to wait for , if you’re sleepy in the morning you can sleep in―☆ They say sleep is precious for beauties, right―♪”
“…”
“…”
“…”
A chilly silence.
I instantly regretted it inwardly.
‘…Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.’
And the three seniors opened their eyes wide, looked at each other and said:
“Clara finally spoke―!”
“Ahaha! That’s right! Sleep is precious―!”
“Uhihi…! Then shall we all take a nap together!”
“Agreed~”
The faces of the seniors trying to grab my hand and pull along were beaming.
I said to them in confusion:
“Um… seniors―☆ I think you misunderstood my words☆”
“Hm?”
“I ant there’s no need to wait…”
“What are you saying!”
Frida grabbed both my hands and said:
“We’re seniors! It’s only natural for us to wait for our junior―!”
“…”
It’s natural to wait…
Sohow I couldn’t forget those words.
The warm hands holding mine, Frida’s eyes shining in the morning sun. And the mory of all of us taking a nap together in the old classroom with the cool spring breeze blowing.
Just a little…
It was the mory of the day I started to understand Clara’s words, just a little.
* * *
“…”
Listening to the operating sound of the ether floating train coming from outside the window, I suddenly rembered an old mory. It was the mory of the day I returned to in the morning sun after passing through such a dark plain.
The scenery of the northern academy city seen through the train window was indistinguishable because it was the middle of the night. Only the huge branches of the World Tree faintly shining in the distance allowed distinguishing between land and sky in the darkness.
Darkness settling.
The train passing through the silence of midnight was advancing towards the vast northern wilderness.
Rattle rattle―
“…”
“…”
“…”
Since it was a train reserved only to transport Bell of the and us, the passenger car was quiet. Under the dimly lit indirect lighting. In the compartnt, only the small breathing sounds of girls in red tracksuits could be heard.
Rustle―
Snore―
We had hurriedly left school in the middle of the night in our tracksuits, bringing only our equipnt. And my juniors who had been listening to Bell’s story eventually succumbed to fatigue and the warmth of the compartnt and fell asleep.
Alvit and Rota were sleeping leaning on chairs with swords and wands hanging at their waists respectively. And Kara was taking up an entire group seat due to her size and the size of the flag she had brought.
The only ones awake in the compartnt were and Bell.
Of course, Bell was still in her red tracksuit.
“…”
As I glanced at my sleeping juniors, my eyes t Bell’s sitting in the opposite seat.
“…!”
Bell, who had been constantly fidgeting at the sudden situation, awkwardly averted her eyes when our gazes t. Her black side tail swayed following her suddenly turned head.
‘Is it because of the setting that she doesn’t cross the line even though she’s a concept freak… She seems surprisingly timid apart from wanting to look strong.’
She seed embarrassed to have asked for help from , which had nothing to do with this matter, even if it was an ergency.
Bell fixed her gaze on the window, cleared her throat unnecessarily, then said in a small voice:
“…It’s still far until we arrive. Why don’t you sleep?”
“I heard an exciting story after a long ti♪ My heart is fluttering so I can’t sleep―☆”
“Ugh…! I’m sorry…! I won’t make you do anything dangerous, and I’ll definitely repay you… Um… Please keep this a secret… from the boss…”
“A girl’s secret is expensive―♪”
“Ugh… Alright! What do you want!”
“Hmm? I wonder if you can handle what I’ll say~☆”
“Don’t look down on , okay? Do you know how many things the cute secretary of the can do in the academy city!”
Bell put on a seemingly confident expression, but she couldn’t erase the anxiety about her situation in her wavering red eyes.
Seeing that, I responded with a aningful smile:
“Huhuhu♪ Is that so~ I’ll have to ask for a very picky and precious thing then―☆”
“…”
“A very very difficult and picky lady’s request♪ Huhuhu―☆ I wonder if you can handle it―♡”
“…”
Bell spoke in a slightly worried voice:
“…Even the cute secretary can’t do cris, okay?”
“Huhuhu―♪”
“H-Hey. You’re not serious, right?”
“Huhuhuhu―☆”
“Wh-What is it?! What are you going to make do―?!”
“Bring a box of delicious cookies later―♪ And let’s have a al together―☆ Of course, Bell’s treat☆”
“Hey, don’t speak aningfully when it’s nothing much―!!”
Bell’s shout was loud enough to make her side tail hair stand on end. Because of that, my juniors sleeping in the next seats reacted by tossing and turning.
“Mmm…”
“Suu…”
Bell flinched seeing that, then turned back to and said in a small voice:
“…Don’t tease over sothing so trivial.”
“Hey―☆ It’s desperate for us☆”
“This is why beggars… Anyway, I can really do that much, so you absolutely won’t tell the boss? Please…”
Her voice gradually diminished until it finally changed to a whisper. But that small voice contained undeniable desperation.
“…?”
Although I had teased Bell, I was sohow bewildered by her too abundant reaction.
Compared to the shalessness the concept freak had shown in the ga, it was sohow an excessively servile attitude. As long as she was an executive of the , it shouldn’t be that strange to ask for help from a school belonging to the union.
‘The flaw is that the help was requested from the union’s poorest school.’
Setting aside the moral aspect, it could be seen as doing her best to be able to bring us as reinforcents who she had beco acquainted with, in a situation where there was no ti to go via .
‘Or is there a reason she shouldn’t be caught by Hilde?’
We didn’t have to go far, Bell herself had ntioned the punishnt wing while muttering. She seed to have caused more trouble than what had co out in the ga.
‘…Well, it’s sothing that happened while she was at for a trivial reason.’
An absent person in charge.
If we were to asure the degree of the mistake Bell had currently made, couldn’t it be compared to Ma Su who went mountain climbing because the scenery was nice?
‘It’s going to be big trouble.’
I nodded as I recalled Hilde’s face, who tended to be strict about principles. She was the type of person who would not only execute Yip Tsam Ma Su, but also behead Guan Yu who let Cao Cao go.
While thinking that, spending ti.
I looked out the window with a sohow ominous premonition.
“…!”
“…?”
Bell seed suspicious of my gaze and tilted her head before looking out the window as well. And seeing the gradually revealed state of the northern wilderness, she clicked her tongue.
“…Oh my.”
“…Oh dear☆”
At that mont, the train’s ergency broadcast was heard.
[…We inform all passengers. Due to an ergency situation that has occurred on this train’s route, we will make an ergency stop.]
[There will be an impact for the ergency stop, so please prepare in your seats.]
Screech――
The train gradually stopping with a chilling tallic sound.
My juniors who had woken up startled by the ergency broadcast sound walked towards the window we were looking at.
“Senior? What’s going on?”
“…Look over there.”
Rota, who had poked Alvit’s side, soon pointed at the window with her slender finger. And in Alvit’s brown eyes looking at the window, the afterimage of sparks twinkling from the horizon was reflected.
“…!”
“…That.”
“Are those… all fireworks filling the horizon?”
A festival of nurous fireworks rising over the darkness of midnight.
Among the flickering flas, though they looked smaller than dots, nurous human figures were moving around. Truly demons walking in a hell made of fireworks. In that baptism of flas heating the horizon, even hallucinations of the noise of fighting and destruction seed to echo all the way here.
In the middle of that hell, magenta-colored flas were vividly flickering. Under the shadows cast by the vivid magenta flas, nurous debris and corpses of monsters were flickering.
Bell realized what those flas ant and lanted:
“[Crimson Trajectory]…”
“…”
The pyromaniac who uses a strange sword.
She was sowhere in that vast northern wilderness.
I recalled the face of one of the five fighting friends I was eting after a long ti.
-Huhahaha!! Are you that ignorant fistfighter battle-lover from the northeastern academy city?
-Oh my―♪ I’d like you to correct that☆ I’m a lady from the east―☆ Though I do love fighting―☆
The past her smiled, showing her crooked teeth, seemingly extrely satisfied with my words.
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