Chapter 14

“Frankly, I was disappointed.”

In a coffee shop, in a corner of the royal capital, Elysia said with her lips off the straw stuck in the glass.

The pink colored liquid that filled the glass was a limited time fruit juice, and was the most expensive item in the store. The clean and relaxed atmosphere of this store seemed to be a favorite of the upper class people living in the royal capital. Perhaps that was why the price was set a little higher for commoners.

Of course, the juice that Elysia was drinking was on me.

“You guys are such playboys,” Elysia said, glaring coldly at me and Glan who were sitting across from her.

“Believe it or not, but this is the first time I’ve picked up a girl.”

“Yes, that’s a lie. Absolutely a lie. I’ve been watching you for quite some time, and you’re acting very accustomed to it.”

When she said that, I couldn’t refute it. I fell silent with Glan and showed my remorse anyway. Then, the silver haired girl sitting in front of us let out a depressed tone of voice.

“Nah, it was a pick-up, was it? Wow, I thought I was going to show you the way because you seemed to be in real trouble…”

“I’m sorry.”

My conscience hurt. I was not going to pick up any more girls.

“In fact. Why don’t you remember the faces of your classmates?”

At Elysia’s words, the silver haired girl and I both groaned. Surprisingly, this girl was our classmate.

Mize Howence. I just remembered that she was the girl who told me she wanted to be an adventurer when she introduced herself. I was sure she was a regular student like me and Glan.

“Well, Tweight’s just like a shadow himself, so it’s no wonder you can’t remember him.”

“Hey!”

I wanted to argue, but I understood what Elysia was going to say. Mize was much easier to remember than I am because of her eye-catching appearance.

Originally I was not that bad at remembering people’s faces. In fact, when I was in the institution, I used to use a special memory technique to remember the faces of my targets so that I wouldn’t forget them no matter what happened during the mission. In addition to memorizing the image of a face, I would also memorize the features of each part of the face, such as the eyes, nose, and mouth, by associating them with symbols to form a semantic memory.

You have to remember the faces of your superiors and targets. If you forget your target, you will fail the mission, and if you forget your boss, you will be beaten senseless. Classmates, however, do not pose such a danger. I subconsciously thought, “Don’t I have to remember?” And forgot to make the effort to actually remember. I was out of my mind. It was my fault.

“I noticed that it was Mize.”

“What?”

At Glan’s words, I turned around briskly.

“No, it’s not like I didn’t notice. Mize-san is our idol in the Regular Department. It’s been less than a week since we started school, but it’s already known to other classes.”

“Ah …please stop, I’m embarrassed.”

Mize was embarrassed, her face turning red.

An idol from the Regular Department. I didn’t know that such a rumor was circulating, but that’s not what I should be worried about right now.

“Hey. Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well, I thought maybe Tweight could be a real pick-up master.”

This guy, I might as well blow him off once. Thanks to him, I ended up picking up my classmates.

“Lowest.”

Elysia glared at Glan, but Glan spoke with an enthusiastic expression.

“I’d like to say one thing, I’m not going to force a woman to be around me if she doesn’t want me to be, okay? Have a good time for both you and your partner. This is the basic rule of picking up girls.”

I gave a cold stare to Glan, who told me confidently.

“How can you talk like that when you’ve never been successful?”

“Ugh… this. I used to be known for my good looks back home, you know?”

No one took that unreliable information seriously.

“By the way, what were Elysia and the others doing?”

“That was a blatant distraction.”

“Give me a break…I bought you a drink.”

With that said, Elysia grabbed the straw and drank the juice in one gulp, making a slurping sound. Then, with a big smile on her face…

“Refill.”

“Go ahead.”

Elysia ordered a refill from the waiter. This was the third exchange. He had now bought Elysia four drinks.

“I’ll forgive you with this. We were just taking a stroll around the royal capital.”

“A walk. Surprisingly, because it’s Elysia, I thought Elysia would be working out after school.”

“Because you told me before, ‘don’t be impatient.’ Since then, I’ve been trying to relax a bit.”

Apparently, my advice that day was not wasted.

“How did you get to know Mize?”

“Two days ago. We talked briefly and hit it off, then we’ve been hanging out a lot. I especially like the fact that she goes to school with a sense of purpose.”

The words sounded a bit arrogant, but perhaps this was Elysia’s true nature. Mize understood this and did not seem to be uncomfortable.

“I think it’s… You’re aspiring to be an adventurer, right?”

“Yes!” Mize affirmed cheerfully.

“Adventurer…is nice, isn’t it? It gives me a sense of freedom. I definitely want to be an adventurer one day and travel the world. That’s why I entered the Bildarz Academy, but I failed the entrance exam for the Hero Department…”

Mize was ecstatic as she talked about her dream, but her expression gradually darkened. Just then, the fourth glass of the limited time juice arrived at the table. After Elysia received it, Mize also drank some of the juice.

That’s not the behavior of a commoner.

The way she pulled her chair, the way she sat, the tone of her voice, the way she sipped her drink. There is a faint sense of peculiarity in everything.

Mize was probably not a commoner. She was an aristocrat. And a very high one at that, but the people around her didn’t notice, and it seemed like she didn’t want to talk about it either. I’ll keep my mouth shut.

“If you want to be an adventurer, it might be better to become a hero.”

“That’s right …. I’m resentful of not being good enough,” Mize said dejectedly.

“You don’t have to be so depressed. That test is not very fair, even if I say so myself,” Elysia said, and Mize rolled her eyes.

“I also found out later that… the pass rate for nobles is unusually high in this exam.”

“Well, you mean…?”

“In the Fourth War of Heroes, many aristocrats personally helped the Hero Party. Mainly in terms of funding, and now that the war is over, the aristocrats are demanding something in return from the government. One of the rewards is a ticket to the Hero Department. If you graduate from the Hero Department of the Bildarz Academy, you will have a good reputation. That’s why the nobles are taking advantage of the opportunity to send their sons and daughters to the Bildarz Academy.”

Because Elysia belonged to the Hero Department, she probably had more opportunities to learn about the realities of the Hero Department than we did. Elysia looked somehow discouraged.

“Even if you don’t, just because you failed that exam doesn’t mean you’re not capable.” I said, agreeing with Elysia.

“That test was a disadvantage for some people. For example, the trapper. A trapper essentially sets a trap on the field in advance, deciding the game before you fight…it’s a classic. However in the entrance exam, it was forbidden to enter the field before the exam began, so they could not do so. Besides other users who specialize in support magics are unable to fight on their own, so they have no choice but to make friends to help them fight. It’s hard to find friends you can trust your back to in such a short period of time.”

“Well you know a lot, Tweight.”

“Well, I took the test, too. Unfortunately, I failed.”

“What do you mean, ‘unfortunately’? You didn’t do it on purpose?”

At Elysia’s sharp prodding, Mize and Glan tilted their heads, ‘On purpose?’ Elysia explained to them with a sigh.

“Haven’t you two heard any rumors about me? That I beat Farnez-sensei in the entrance exam?”

“Of course I’ve heard of it. There were a lot of rumors about it as soon as I entered the school. Who doesn’t know that. After all, a girl who hadn’t even entered the school yet, let alone a graduate, had suddenly beaten the teacher.”

“Actually, I saw Farnez-sensei only once during the exam. To be honest, at first I couldn’t believe that someone of my age had just defeated her. Farnez-sensei was clearly not at the same level as the examinees, and in fact, most of them were completely defeated.”

The fact that Elysia had defeated Farnez-sensei during the examinations was now a well-known fact that every student at the school knew. It was probably significant that not only the regular students but also the students of the Hero Department acknowledged this fact. Some even rumored that Elysia was the 'strongest first-year student”.

Elysia let out a sigh.

“It wasn’t really me who defeated Farnez-sensei, it was Tweight.”

“Eh!?”

Mize and Glan were surprised with a loud voice.

“Elysia… That’s a little uncalled for, don’t you think?

“Then explain it yourself. I don’t want to explain this anymore,” Elysia said disgustedly.

I was not sure what to say, but I decided to take over the rest of the explanation.

“Technically, Elysia and I teamed up to defeat Farnez-sensei, but then there was a little trouble and I didn’t pass the exam. That’s probably why Elysia is believed to have defeated Farnez-sensei on her own.”

“Actually, most of the credit goes to Tweight, not me. It was Twight who incapacitated the teacher. All I did after that was point my sword to her.”

“No, I couldn’t do that alone. The teacher couldn’t afford to read my aim because Elysia was in a close battle.”

“I hope so. There’s something about Tweight that makes me think he’s hiding something else.”

As we talked to each other, I noticed that Glan and Mize were looking at me.

“You guys are incredible. It’s like you’re on another level…”

“You’re both awesome…”

The way they were looking at me made me feel uncomfortable in a way I couldn’t describe. My need for strength was a thing of the past. Now I don’t feel happy at all when people bring it up, and I don’t feel proud when people recognize it.

“That’s right. I wanted to ask you something, Tweight. You were sloppy in your magic practice today. Why? I thought you weren’t trying to hide your abilities.”

Today’s magic practice probably meant that I couldn’t even activate《Fireball》

and was ridiculed by a hero student. Certainly, for Elysia, who knows my abilities to some extent, can’t help but wonder.

“I didn’t slack off. That’s my strength.”

“But you can use《SniperSnipe》. That’s a D rank magic. So it’s strange that you can’t use《Fireball》, which is also a D rank magic.”

I was confronted with the obvious question. I honestly told the facts.

“The only long-range shooting magic I can use are《SniperSnipe》and《Magic Bullet》. The《SniperSnipe》cannot be controlled well without a wand, and the《Magic Bullet》was not approved for use.”

When I told her that, Elysia looked more and more suspicious.

“You can only use two kinds of magic…?”

“The only thing that falls under the long-range shooting type. I can’t use any other magic… or rather, I haven’t learned much. Instead, I’m confident that the two magics I just mentioned can be used more than anything else.”

“Well, surely your《SniperSnipe》was not humanly possible.”

Even a soldier in the institution would normally be able to learn a little more magic. In my case, however, I only learned《SniperSnipe》and《Magic Bullet》. It’s not that I couldn’t learn them, it’s that my instructor judged that those two were enough for me. In fact, I have been able to survive with them so far, so I guess the instructor was right.

After chatting, we decided to leave the coffee shop and return to the dormitory before it got dark. Elysia and Mize’s drinks were paid for by me and Glan. Mize was somewhat reluctant, but my conscience would have been hurt if I had only apologized verbally, so I somewhat forcefully decided to buy her a drink.

“Hmm?”

As I walked out of the store, I heard some noisy voices.

“You! You know that I’m the legitimate son of Baron Falchion?”

The boy who shouted angrily was Zeke from the Hero Department.