Once Cory had taken his hands away from his face, I could see that it was slightly red. It was so barely there that I had to look carefully at his pale skin to tell. Cory avoided my gaze as he continued to speak with a small voice.
"I just barely accepted the truth. Stop reminding like that."
I didn't know what he was talking about, so I thought about it for a mont. Then I burst into laughter. I couldn't stop laughing.
"Oh, right. You're my fan. Puhaha!"
It had been a while since I had laughed so loudly. He was so embarrassed, but still expressed everything he felt anyway. I found that kind of Cory funny.
Cory seed to be embarrassed: he frowned, muttering, "…..don't laugh."
"Do you want a signature, Cory? A free hug? Just say the word. Oh, you got a handshake last ti, right?"
"……I don't need it."
Cory was definitely sulking.
He turned away from and pretended to read a book. He was silent for a while, as if he was thinking deeply about sothing.
Cory roughly shook his hand in his hair, then turned back around and spoke.
"……are you really going to?"
I ended up laughing again.
I missed the entirety of morning class for our monster subjugation. The only classes that had their students skip morning class for practical exams were the magic classes and the swordsmanship classes respectively.
The reason was simple. In honesty, the mountains near our school had the occasional monsters intruding in the area, and that was a pretty big problem.
Don't ask why they built a school near monsters. That's an answer that only adults can answer.
Anyway, the magic and swordsmanship classes were important to the school: that was because most of the swordsmanship students were aiming to beco royal knights, and the magic students were aiming to work at the royal court of magicians.
So they used us as free labor and called it training.
Younger juniors like would take care of lower-level monsters like slis that were located in the lower regions of the mountains. As we grew older, the senior-level students would go higher up the hill and deal with higher-level monsters.
Using students as free labor, what a loan shark thing to do. I promised myself that I would get my paycheck from Hylli when he beca king.
"Shuraina, are you nervous?"
Hylli, who was wearing a tight-fitting red battle outfit, stood near the lower-level entrance of the hill. He suddenly spoke to .
I shook my head.
"I was thinking about how to rip you off in the upcoming future."
"You're not nervous. That's good."
He nodded his head, as if he was used to my response. Hylli had already gotten used to . Because of that, it had gotten more difficult recently to add more to my Embarrassing Monts collection these days.
The more he dueled , the more we shared conversations, the faster he matured. It might have been because of , but I felt that he was getting more cunning as well.
The sad part of all this was that I couldn't see any more scenes that made cringe. Maybe the shock tactic worked a bit too well: he fixed it all at once. How boring.
The swordsmanship students were all at the lower entrance of the mountain, earlier than the other class. After waiting for approximately ten minutes, we could see a crowd of students wearing wine-colored robes coming closer. In the midst of unfamiliar faces, we could see a head of blond hair.
Hylli and I went over to see Cory in the crowd.
Cory was wearing the hood of the robe. After belatedly seeing Hylli and I approaching him, he ca over to us and took off his hood.
His blond hair was a ss. Hylli saw Cory's ssy haiir and laughed, and Cory combed through his hair with his fingers. When I brushed it down for him, he just stood still.
Hylli looked at Cory and began to speak.
"This practical exam, I guess the magic students are also partaking in it."
Once his hair had been cald down a bit, Cory took his eyes off of and looked at the prince.
Cory nodded his head as he responded.
"But for the magic students, this was optional. The magic students whose focus isn't attack-based all skipped out."
Hylli muttered, "The magic class……….." and thought about it, then opened his mouth.
"Then Swanhaden will be skipping out of this exam then, too."
Hylli seed to be looking for soone in the crowd of magic students. He kept looking around. I listened to Hylli's muttering and thought about it for a mont. Swanhaden….. it was a na I had heard often.
Oh, that's right. Swanhaden was a childhood friend of mine and Hestia's. But even if we were technically childhood friends, we weren't very close.
Swanhaden was a childhood friend from a long ti ago, and was the son of a duke and one of the main characters. It was hard to find in in school, so I had briefly forgotten about him.
When Hylli spoke about Swan, Cory tilted his head in confusion.
"What do you an, skipping out of this exam. He's not even attending the academy yet."
"Oh, that's right. I forgot. Swanhaden is currently studying abroad in the south of the continent."
"Aren't they at war?"
"That's what I'm saying. Who goes to study at such a fearso place? Although, he's even scarier than a war so he's probably fine."
It looked like Hylli, Swan, and Cory had known each other for a while back.
Well, they were all children of very powerful families, so it would've been weird if they didn't know each other. If he had t with , a lowly child of a baron, it definitely made sense that they would know the prince and the son of a marquis.
"Swan's probably going to be matriculating as a third year junior."
"Oh, okay. Honestly, I just wish we'd never et."
Hylli's face was wooden. Cory laughed at Hylli's reaction.
"You're scared of a child of a duke when you're the prince?"
Cory finally admitted it.
"Anyway, isn't Swan a friend of yours too, Shuraina? I've heard that the Blanche Dukedom and the West family t often for business reasons."
"Our families work well together, but we really don't have much of a connection."
I thought about Swanhaden as I responded.
Swanhaden was the prettiest out of everyone I had seen before. He was definitely handso, but I always thought of him as prettier than handso.
When we were younger, Swan ca to our ho often with his father and used our training hall. I trained everyday in our halls, so I bumped into him often. Hestia was always next to , watching practice.
He had a face of an angel, but his expression was endlessly cold. He seed to hate any sort of skin exposure, and always wore a long black shirt that went up to his neck even during practice.
He always wore long shirts and long pants. I once saw him wearing a short-sleeved shirt. His body was covered in scars.
He always ignored when I spoke, and always pretended to listen whenever Hestia spoke. I kind of knew that he was a character in the novel, so I assud that was why.
I couldn't really recall his personality in the novel, but I didn't think it was very good. Well, it was hard to find a normal person within the main male characters.
But watching Cory and Hylli, I thought that the novel got it wrong. Or was it because we were still young?
The three of us continued our conversation. We didn't really have to get in line, so we headed to the testing zone together.
The lower region of the Augran Mountains were just close to being plains. There was a slight upwards hill, but it was just a grass-covered field. The test level was very low, probably because we were still kids.
There was a blue sli that was squirming across the floor. It was cute, but when a group of humans approached it, it seed to beco cautious.
The blue slis began preparing to attack when they were faced with humans. I felt bad watching them. What cris did they commit for us to subjugate them? When I asked Cory, I was told that apparently, they spread poison in crops, and attacked, lted and ate young children. And apparently they even work as catalysts for bigger monsters.
Listening to all of that, I internally fixed my mindset. I would definitely kill them all.
"Okay, everyone should be here by now! Our practical exam will be graded by how many essences you collect from sli monsters! The first part will be slis, the second part will be yailons, and the third part will be catching lactonils! The first part of the exam will take place for half an hour, and if you sustain any injuries you will be instantly teleported to the school nurse, so do not worry too much."
Whoa, I could feel so sort of magical effect from my clothes. That was teleportation magic? I had just assud that it was so sort of protection magic. Our school rocks.
I thought about the different ways I could alter my clothes as I held my sword. When I thought about killing slis, I thought about a certain RPG ga and laughed.
"And begin!"
As soon as the swordsmanship teacher finished speaking, the academy students ran towards the monsters holding swords and magic staffs. Occasionally, they would join in teams and defeat the monsters together. I inadvertently began working with Cory and Hylli.
Because there was a limited amount of slis, everyone tried their best to earn a high test score. I didn't run. It was difficult and annoying. I didn't feel the need. Anyway, my goal wasn't just so high test score. I wanted a higher club ranking, and a high club paynt.
"Cory, I'm going to lure the slis to one area. Can you burn them all at once?"
"That won't be hard."
I looked towards the prince and asked him sothing too.
"Sir, seeing how these slis are working as a group, it looks like the leader of the slis might be around here sowhere. I've heard that you've subjugated monsters from a young age. Would you be able to find the leader? Please don't kill them."
Hylli nodded at my request, then looked at as if I was suspicious. I pretended not to notice and just nodded with him. Then, Hylli seed to ask a question with his face, then headed out to find the king sli.
As Hylli disappeared, only Cory and I remained. I used a hallucinatory magic to lure the slis with a sll that they liked. The slis slowly ca closer to Cory and I.
When Cory saw that the slis were all coming closer, Cory asked how I was doing that. I responded that I was just using one example of hallucinatory magic.
When the monsters had been lured into a single area, Cory held up with his magic. I put up a shield and yelled at him to shoot his magic at . Then, Cory frowned, floated upwards, then separated from the slis. Before the slis could chase again, he burned them all with fire magic.
I was shocked at Cory's magic. Hylli's sword skills, too–this had to be so kind of hack. It was just simple fire magic, but the effects were incredible. No, even the color was different. Normal fire magic was red, but Cory's magic was blue. It was so hot that I squinted at the heat.
"Sorry, it's a bit hot, right?"
Cory threw a cold water barrier my way to keep cool as the slid died off. I was grateful for his care and mouthed, "Thanks." Cory smiled thinly and nodded my way.
Reviews
All reviews (0)