Chapter 39
“Why are they here?”
“That’s what we’d like to ask you.”
Miriam furrowed her brow deeply, while Karen narrowed her eyes in the same way, and they asked at the same time.
Miriam asked me, while Karen asked Rex.
“Ah, well….”
“That’s because Classes A and E ended up being assigned the same mission.”
Rex answered while looking at Haru, who was scratching his head with an awkward expression.
“Did Class E choose the manticore subjugation mission as well?”
“Yes.”
“Hmph, if the missions we chose overlap, shouldn’t one side yield?”
Karen spoke as though she was thoroughly displeased, casting sidelong glances toward Class E.
“You said it. Then Class A can yield.”
Karen shouted at Miriam’s grinning reply, spreading both hands wide and pointing with them at Maximilian, who had been standing quietly behind her.
“Right now! Are you daring to tell His Highness the Prince to back down?!”
“Ugh…!”
Talk about hiding behind someone powerful. But it was incredibly effective!
Miriam had at least enough awareness to read the room, so she glanced at Maximilian and groaned. However, after looking back and forth between her and Karen, Maximilian replied.
“I don’t particularly mind carrying out a joint mission.”
“That’s what he says?”
“Ugh…!!”
This time, Karen was driven onto the defensive. When she turned toward Rex, who was standing behind her, with an imploring expression, he said,
“A manticore isn’t an easy monster to deal with. The more people deployed on a large-monster subjugation mission, the safer it is. Dean Ludwig gave his permission as well.”
“Yes, since that’s how things turned out… couldn’t you all just get along instead of fighting…?”
I patted Miriam on the head to comfort her.
“Well, with Class A joining us, I suppose there’s no need to worry about failure.”
“There’s no point forcing my personal feelings into this.”
Charlotte and Kariya didn’t seem to have any intention of causing trouble either.
That was when Aila Lucilante approached me as I was soothing the sulking Miriam.
“…The other day, someone from my family was rude to you.”
“Huh?”
I hadn’t expected her to speak to me directly, so while I was flustered, Aila bowed deeply at the waist.
“M-Miss Aila?”
“Well, then.”
Aila straightened up as though nothing had happened and returned to her place without another word.
“…Aila?”
“….”
Karen, visibly flustered, called out to her, but Aila didn’t answer. She simply leaned her back against a tree and closed her eyes.
An indescribable atmosphere descended upon us. Miriam and Karen, whose faces had been flushed just moments ago, now wore bewildered expressions, so I quickly stepped forward and said,
“W-Well then, shall we get going?”
In the awkward atmosphere, where it felt as though we even had to be careful about breathing, we quietly boarded the carriages assigned to each class.
=
“I wanna ride a carriage without wheels toooo.”
“Are you a child?”
Charlotte chided Miriam, who was making a whining noise.
“To begin with, wheel-less levitation carriages are an exceedingly luxurious item that only members of the royal family can use. It isn’t that Class A is special; it’s His Highness the Prince….”
“In the end, they’re freeloading off the prince’s backing too!”
Miriam shrieked at those words.
“They’re annoying and I hate them.”
“I agree with that, but what’s the point of whining about it?”
Kariya muttered with his chin propped on the windowsill.
Miriam glanced at him and grumbled.
“Ahh, I wonder if someone on our team will turn out to have a secret royal lineage or something.”
“Get realistic.”
Kariya scoffed.
“To begin with, Roxanna and Charlotte are both daughters of bona fide noble families, and I’m obviously an easterner. With you being the only person here with even a remote possibility… Besides, you don’t have blonde hair.”
“What’s blonde hair got to do with it?”
“You don’t know?”
Miriam tilted her head in puzzlement. Kariya answered with an expression of genuine surprise.
“Anyone with even a trace of royal blood is born with golden-blond hair that shines like the sun. Not dull gray hair like yours.”
“But Charlotte and Roxanna are blonde too?”
“I mean that all members of the royal family are blonde, not that everyone who’s blonde belongs to the royal family….”
“Ohhh.”
Miriam nodded, then collapsed forward and laid her forehead on the table inside the carriage.
“Then I have no chance.”
“Now that you know, shut your mouth.”
Kariya pointed at the basket of cookies on the table and said,
“You could at least stuff some of those snacks in your mouth or something.”
“There aren’t any?”
“What?”
At Miriam’s answer, Kariya turned his head and looked at the basket.
“Seriously?”
“Hey.”
As Kariya grew flustered, Miriam glared at him.
“Are you messing with me about the food?”
“No, it was definitely full when we first got into the carriage….”
Kariya scratched his head and muttered. Charlotte, who was sitting beside him, spoke in a low voice.
“…Instructor?”
“Hmm?”
What was going on? Why were the children suddenly looking at me?
“Don’t tell me Teacher Haru ate all of them already? All by himself?”
Miriam asked with a slightly appalled expression, pointing at my hand.
“….”
I silently lowered my head and looked down at the snack in my hand.
Wait, this is the last one?
I thought I’d only eaten a few… It had definitely been full just a moment ago.
The children looked at me with cold, disapproving eyes. I hesitated, then held out the last cookie in my hand to Miriam and asked,
“Want some?”
“…No, thank you.”
Miriam flopped back against the carriage’s backrest and answered breezily. I hesitated for a moment with the cookie in my hand, then swallowed the one I had been chewing.
My face felt hot. If I looked in a mirror right now, there would probably be a tomato staring back at me instead of a person.
“D-Did you skip breakfast…?”
Charlotte asked with a forced smile.
I silently nodded. Hadn’t my dignity as a teacher just been reduced by about fifty percent?
‘My dream of becoming as great a teacher as my master….’
Taking a small bite of the last chocolate cookie, I shed tears inwardly.
But I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stand feeling anxious whenever my mouth was empty.
‘I haven’t seen Rex even once since that day.’
Two weeks ago. Because he had spoken so carelessly despite not properly knowing my master.
I had gotten angry at Rex and left, and I hadn’t seen him for more than two weeks since then.
More precisely, I had avoided him. I had no confidence at all that I could face him.
Even though I was still struggling to force out an apology for a mistake I had made over a decade ago, what on earth had I been thinking when I suddenly flew off the handle like that?
It had been my own action, not anyone else’s, yet I still couldn’t understand it at all.
My master, and Rex.
Which of the two did I hold more dear?
If I had to choose only one of them, who would it be?
‘…I don’t know.’
I couldn’t easily come up with an answer.
The time I had spent with my master was incomparably longer. The extent of his influence on me was also beyond comparison. Objectively speaking, Rex was merely a fleeting fragment of a childhood memory.
But why was that?
‘Are you worried about something?’
Seventeen years ago, on that day, you reached out your hand to me when I couldn’t see even an inch ahead. You still remain so deeply etched in my memory that you refuse to fade away.
To the point that I felt guilty toward my master.
“…Phew.”
I let out a small sigh, reclined against the carriage’s backrest, and closed my eyes.
It wasn’t as comfortable as the wheel-less carriage, but it was a state-of-the-art carriage with suspension, so my back and hips didn’t start hurting.
As I closed my eyes and reclined comfortably, drowsiness soon overcame me.
=
‘Do you understand, Haru? When facing an enemy, always….’
The sound of birdsong and a waterfall echoed in my ears, along with my master’s low, murmuring voice.
‘So this is a dream.’
I realized at once that it was a dream, even as I sat cross-legged with my eyes closed. Although my back was straight, my entire body felt languid. It was like being in a dream—no, it was a sweet sensation so unmistakably dreamlike that I could feel it clearly.
It was the kind of dream I sometimes had when I drifted into a light sleep, a dream I never wanted to wake from.
‘…Tsk tsk, are you sleeping again?’
Eventually, my master noticed something strange and asked. He soon approached my dozing self and brought his knuckles down on the crown of my head, waking me from the dream.
This was a dream that always followed the same course.
-Tap, tap.
Footsteps approached. My master came toward me and reached out his hand.
-Thump.
‘Get up.’
My master shook my shoulder, but the dream didn’t end.
What was this? Feeling something strange, I opened my bleary eyes.
‘…ake up. Wake up….’
“…please, Instructor. Instructor!”
“I-I wasn’t asleep!”
I blurted out in surprise, blinking as I looked at Charlotte.
“Were you perhaps dreaming…?”
“…Ahaha.”
I awkwardly laughed off Charlotte’s question and carefully asked,
“Um, have we arrived…?”
“Yes. The others have already headed into the village.”
Charlotte stared at me, and I scratched the back of my neck awkwardly.
‘I must already have been waking up little by little.’
So that was why my master had shaken my shoulder instead of bonking me on the head. The sensation of Charlotte shaking my shoulder in reality must have blended into my half-awake dream.
Feeling awkward, I hurriedly got out of the carriage. I even secretly wiped my face.
I was glad I had learned some basic water-element magic in advance. Being able to create clean water anywhere and at any time was incredibly useful.
Once I got out, I found that we had indeed arrived at the waystation, just as Charlotte had said. Since it was a waystation outside a rural village, there were many old and worn-out parts visible here and there.
I turned to Charlotte as she got out behind me and apologized.
“I’m sorry, Miss Charlotte. For making you wait needlessly.”
“It’s all right.”
Charlotte answered calmly and walked alongside me.
More precisely, she wasn’t completely beside me. She stood slightly diagonally behind, as though trailing me.
We were on the road leading into the village, with the mountain where the manticore had appeared far behind it.
As we passed the sign, I muttered inwardly,
‘Come to think of it… it’s been a long time since I dreamed of my master.’
The thought suddenly occurred to me.
‘Could it be because I was thinking about those things?’
“Instructor.”
“Yes?”
That was when Charlotte spoke to me.
“Are you perhaps troubled by something?”
“T-Troubled?”
I fumbled out a reply.
“Who knows? What could I possibly be troubled about~?”
“…If you don’t know, Instructor, who does?”
Charlotte sighed and muttered before speaking to me.
“…Well, don’t be too nervous.”
“Nervous? Ahaha….”
I let my voice trail off, then suddenly tilted my head.
‘I was nervous, though.’
“It’s my first mission, but I’ll make sure we succeed perfectly.”
Charlotte said this while thumping her chest, as if to say, You can count on me, your class representative. I quietly stared at her, surprised by this unexpected side hidden behind her usual mature demeanor, then nodded with a relaxed smile.
“…Yes, thank you.”
I gave Charlotte a short bow, and just as I was about to start walking along the road again,
“…?”
A familiar smell stung the tip of my nose.
“What’s that smell of burning…?”
At Charlotte’s words, I quickly looked up at the sky in the direction of the village.
Black smoke billowed upward as though it might fill the entire sky, while blazing flames rose high enough for us to feel the heat even from here.
“Miss Charlotte.”
When I turned toward Charlotte, she silently nodded.
Neither of us waited for the other; we ran toward the village at the same time.