Chapter 37
Chapter 37
“Are you heading out?”
The Academy’s semester had begun, and the first weekend had arrived.
Unlike weekdays, when outings were restricted, weekends allowed free passage.
Just as I was about to head outside, thinking I’d buy a few necessities, I turned my head at a familiar voice and saw Elysia.
“You too?”
“Yes, I have a few things I need to buy.”
She lightly glanced around me.
Seeing her act as though she were looking for someone, I let out a small chuckle and opened my mouth.
“If you’re looking for Alice, she’s probably sleeping.”
“…I wasn’t particularly looking for her.”
She flinched as if her thoughts had been exposed, then quickly replied with a calm expression as though it were nothing.
“Since this is a coincidence too, would you like to walk around together?”
It seemed like perfect timing.
Coincidence or not, opportunities to close the distance with her weren’t common.
However, at my suggestion, Elysia tilted her head slightly.
“Is that really okay?”
“There’s no reason it wouldn’t be.”
“No, I mean, there’s Miss Alice.”
She seemed to be misunderstanding something.
Well, considering how closely we’d stuck together from the first day, it wasn’t strange.
“We’ve just known each other for a long time. It’s not that kind of relationship.”
“…Is that so.”
Her face said she didn’t particularly care about that matter, which left me slightly wounded.
As expected of the main heroine.
Was she not someone who opened her heart easily?
“Then, I’ll be in your care for today.”
At least the fact that she hadn’t refused was my only consolation.
Countless people passed along Beatrice’s Road.
Weekends were when students from Bayern Academy poured out, making it the most active time for local commerce.
At the sights unfolding everywhere and the rare items on display, Elysia kept letting out exclamations of admiration as she looked around.
“Britain isn’t as wealthy a place as this, you know.”
As I watched Elysia looking around, she seemed deliberately shy as she offered an excuse.
The Duchy of Britain, to which she belonged, was located at the Empire’s southernmost edge, bordering the Monster Mountain Range.
In the distant past, it had belonged to the Empire, but after expanding its forces and growing strong through fighting monsters, it eventually declared independence.
Naturally, the Empire couldn’t help but feel displeased, but dealing with the monsters pouring out of the mountain range required an astronomical budget every year.
Rather than raising an army to occupy barren land and then defend it, acknowledging Britain’s independence was the cheaper option.
Still, what remained an issue was the Empire’s pride.
The larger the body, the more countless wolves lurked around, waiting for an opportunity.
Leaving a precedent meant others could seize it as a chance to do the same, so it couldn’t be acknowledged lightly.
In the end, it was settled amicably by arranging a marriage between a child of Britain and someone of imperial blood.
‘Then does that make me a distant relative of hers?’
Since it had already been over two hundred years since the Duchy of Britain became independent, it wouldn’t be strange if at least a drop of the same blood was mixed somewhere.
As we walked around the streets, time slipped by before I knew it.
The crimson sunset dyed the sky, dusk settling in, and after having dinner, we decided to slowly return to the Academy.
“Hm?”
At that moment, something peculiar caught my eye in the distance.
Though he was dressed up extravagantly, the blue-haired handsome man’s face was familiar.
“What are you staring at so intently?”
Perhaps because we’d grown closer over the course of the day, she followed my gaze with a questioning look.
Then she saw Werner emerging from a flamboyant tavern in the distance.
“Hm……”
Elysia let out the same contemplative sound as I did.
Soon after, however, she shook her head and spoke.
“Well, it’s not forbidden, and it’s a matter of personal taste.”
“I suppose so.”
I wasn’t particularly surprised that he’d come out of a tavern.
What had caught my attention was the tavern itself.
Fairy’s Fantasia.
On the surface, it was decorated as a lavish tavern, but in truth, it was the Empire’s largest information guild.
Still, it shouldn’t have appeared at this point in time.
In particular, at least to my memory, there had been no mention of Werner having gone there.
“Let’s head back. Curfew is cutting it close.”
“…Yeah.”
If I hadn’t been with her today, I would’ve returned to the Academy earlier and wouldn’t have seen Werner.
I felt a slight worry about how this might come back around later.
“Then, before we begin the full-scale practical training, I’ll explain the details once more.”
The first week at Bayern Academy had passed.
The provisional period known as the adaptation phase had ended, and with the main semester beginning, the Academy started to become fully active.
Bayern Academy was the Empire’s finest academy.
As such, it was different from other places where students merely sat in classrooms buried in desks.
Within the Academy grounds were numerous training fields and facilities, and there was even a dungeon.
The place we arrived at today was an instant dungeon created by mages.
Since the midterm exam of the first semester was graded by entering and exploring an actual dungeon, practical training was conducted in instant dungeons until then.
“As announced in advance, exploration of instant dungeons is conducted independently by each department, while actual dungeons are structured in cooperation with other departments.”
Ordinarily, a dungeon raid party was properly composed of multiple job classes.
At the vanguard were thieves or rangers who detected traps and found paths.
In the middle were warriors who blocked enemies that appeared in emergencies.
And at the rear were mages who handled the party’s firepower, along with healers who took care of injuries.
Bayern Academy housed not only a swordsmanship department, but also departments for magic, healers, rangers, thieves, and many other fields.
Therefore, there was no problem forming a party, but when it came to conquering the instant dungeon, instead of deliberately assembling a textbook-perfect party, each department carried out a rehearsal among themselves.
“Ready?”
I looked over our party.
Originally, the lineup I wanted consisted of Alice, Elysia, Werner, and myself.
However, for the sake of fairness, top-ranking students weren’t allowed to cluster in one place, so I had no choice but to hold back my tears and select other members.
“Leave it to me.”
The one thumping his chest with a confident expression was named Diark.
His slightly curly purple hair was neatly slicked back.
His looks didn’t lose out to Werner’s—he was a handsome man in his own right.
He hailed from the Deporon family, known as a prestigious spear-fighting lineage of the Empire, and he himself possessed considerable skill.
And he was also the main villain of the Academy dungeon episode.
Diark was a scion of a renowned spear-fighting house, but he was born a bastard.
Because of that, he grew up facing constant discrimination from a young age, and a great deal of unseen darkness piled up in his heart.
‘He doesn’t look like it, though.’
Seeing him throw a subtle flirtation Alice’s way with a lively expression, he was unmistakably the same type of person as Werner.
What kind of emotions were hidden inside him?
During the dungeon exploration, Diark would offer a sacrifice he had prepared in advance and manifest a demon.
If the protagonist hadn’t been there, massive damage would have occurred, but the protagonist, having awakened the hero’s power, defeated it splendidly and resolved the situation with minimal losses.
That was also when Elysia changed her evaluation of him in the story.
A demon suddenly appeared.
She desperately swung her sword, but it didn’t reach the enemy.
Instead, she was toyed with and nearly humiliated—until the protagonist magnificently brought it down.
But now, the situation was different.
“Our turn was fourth, right?”
Alice, who was in the same party as me, waited her turn while checking her equipment.
Just looking at her made me feel incredibly reassured.
‘We should be able to take it down without much trouble.’
I recalled the golden aura that had flared from her sword when she fought me.
Alice already wielded the hero’s power freely.
A mere low-ranking demon that might manifest in a dungeon like this would be easily defeated.
Even if some unexpected variable arose, if I stepped in, it would be over quickly.
To deal with someone close to a Sword Master like me, at least a mid-ranking demon would need to appear.
But there was no way that would happen in the early part of the story.
As long as that absolute plausibility held firm, an excessive monster wouldn’t appear.
‘So it can be used like this too.’
Up until now, I’d thought of plausibility as something that only bound me, but with a slight change in perspective, it became an incomparably reliable ally.
After all, to defy the laws of the world, you’d have to be someone like Sword Saint Yohanel or the Archmage Chris.
That was why I brought Diark, who would become a demon in the dungeon, into our party without hesitation.
“Next!”
Soon, it was our party’s turn.
I stood before the dungeon entrance with Alice, Diark, and the final member, Maria.
For reference, Maria was the brown-haired female student who had told us that Alice was being dragged away by upperclassmen.
I hadn’t paid her any attention originally, but after hearing the full story, Alice suggested we go together.
Apparently, she said Maria reminded her of a friend she’d been close to in her original world, or something like that.
‘Maria, huh.’
It was a common name, but I didn’t remember seeing her in the original story.
Assuming she was an extra with no particular importance, I stepped into the dungeon.
[SYSTEM: You have entered the instant dungeon.]
“…Oh.”
As soon as we entered the dungeon, a notification appeared along with a detailed map of the interior.
Those red dots moving around had to be the monsters inside.
“Shall we go, then.”
Alice took the lead.
She was an advanced assassin.
When it came to detecting traps or mechanisms, she surpassed most thieves or rangers.
There was no need to reveal the existence of a status window, so we followed behind her at a slow pace.
Soon, after discovering something, she stopped in her tracks.
She carefully examined the darkness ahead, then spoke to us.
“Thirteen orcs ahead.”
“You can see that?”
Diark praised Alice with a genuinely impressed expression.
I looked at the map, and just as she’d said, I could confirm thirteen red dots marked there.
“The plan is…….”
I was the party leader.
All three gazes gathered on me, but scratching my cheek awkwardly, I replied.
“I don’t think we’d lose even if we just fight normally.”
Unless roles were clearly divided, everyone except Alice, who was taking the lead, overlapped in function.
The same went for the other parties too, so until we entered a real dungeon, that wouldn’t change.
“Still, combat counts toward the score, so let’s split the area simply. Maria, you can do it too, right?”
“…Yeah.”
She nodded, but her frail-looking face didn’t inspire much confidence.
So when I glanced at Alice and Diark, they nodded as if to say to leave it to them.
‘If she made it into Bayern Academy, she can’t be completely hopeless.’
There were sometimes people with outstanding talent who made mistakes because they feared blood or weren’t accustomed to real combat.
But the opponents were orcs, the weakest among monsters.
No matter how inexperienced, it would be rare for someone to get hurt.
Soon, a group of orcs armed with axes and clubs revealed themselves.
The moment they sensed our presence, they charged with flashing eyes, spewing rough breaths.
“Then!”
As agreed beforehand, we each took our positions and faced the oncoming orcs.
‘Just take out four…….’
At my current level, there was no way orcs would even register to me.
Whether there were ten or a hundred, I was confident I could wipe them all out within five minutes.
If I wanted to have a bit of fun, I’d need at least a troll or an ogre.
It seemed to be the same for Alice—her eyes, glimpsed briefly, held a bored expression.
Only Diark and Maria raised their fighting spirit to the fullest, gripping their weapons tightly.
Slice.
The sword I swung lightly cleaved through the orc’s body without any resistance.
Just as I turned to find the second one—
Sshhhaeek!
Something moving so fast I couldn’t even make out its form brushed past my side.
“…Huh?”