episode_0055

“Princess! Princess!”

I was leisurely drinking tea and resting when someone knocked loudly on my dorm room door.

Of course, there aren’t many people who know where my dorm room is, and if there were people looking for me, it would be even less. I sighed, got up from the table, and slowly walked over to open the door.

“Cosette, what brings you here all of a sudden?”

“Princess! It’s snowing! It’s snowing! ”

As soon as the door opened, Cosette came into my room and started running around. It was a nice sight to see a cute girl running around the room, making a fuss, but for me, it was not a very pleasant experience to experience the commotion.

After hearing Cosette’s words, I looked out the window and saw that it was indeed snowing. I thought to myself that it was really winter and that this year was over.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Yes, that’s right─ No! Princess! What should I do if it snows!”

Cosette followed my voice and grabbed my hand and swung it around, and my head snapped up. Sure enough, I couldn’t just pass up this opportunity to snow.

“..I’m surprised. It’s just like Cosette said. I can’t just stay in the room.”

“Haha.. As expected! Do you think so too, princess?”

“Call Ayla and Mathias right now. I have some preparations to make.”

“Huh? Is it okay if I don’t call Agnes? Oh. Is it because there are 4 of us? ”

“Well.. If we gather together without Agnes, she might be upset. Please tell Agnes to dress warmly so she doesn’t catch a cold.”

“Okay, then I’ll go to where Ayla always trains!”

Cosette left those words and ran out of the room. I didn’t smile happily as I watched her… I just felt that way.

.

.

.

“..Princess. Why are we all gathered here? I hate the cold..”

“Of course, it’s because of the training that can only be done in this cold. I wouldn’t have thought of it if it weren’t for Cosette.”

“..Huh!?”

Cosette jumped up in surprise.

“Training!? It wasn’t a snowball fight!?”

“..I didn’t say a single word like that.”

Cosette dropped the snowball she had been working hard to make. I had been wondering why she had been fussing around so much, but it was because she thought there would be a snowball fight. Her face was filled with despair.

“If you really want to have a snowball fight, I’ll let you have it a little later. But it’ll be a snowball fight where Cosette has to dodge the snowballs I throw or kick them away with her sword…”

“That’s just training!”

Cosette screamed. I said to Mathias and Ayla, who shrugged their shoulders and looked at Cosette with resentful eyes.

“Now, Cosette, Ayla, and Mathias still don’t feel their magic properly. They may be using it to some extent instinctively, but they haven’t yet developed a clear sense of it. Today’s training is to properly find out about that.”

“I really like this training content, but…is it really necessary to do it outside in this snowy weather?”

Ayla said, shivering and curling up. Isn’t it that cold in Ayla’s hometown? It’s snowing, but I don’t think it’s that cold.

Instead of answering Ayla’s question, I drew my sword. The sword that Ravin made for me was much better than I thought, so I could do this kind of training.

I began to pour magical power into my sword. The sword body that gently accepted my magical power began to become covered in frost, and my overflowing magical power began to affect the world. The temperature around me dropped even further, and the snow fell even more heavily.

“No, I’m freezing right now, what are you doing!”

Ayla screamed and hid behind Mathias. It wasn’t like it would get warmer just because of that. Agnes was watching us with interest, warming himself by the campfire in one corner.

“I’m sure I’m telling everyone, but this is training. Wait a minute…”

I swung my scabbard and drew a circle on the ground with the blade as the reference point.

“Okay, this is the range of my magical power. Keep moving around this boundary and feel my magical power.”

“Do I have to do this right now, in this weather?”

Ayla grumbled, but did as I said. I said calmly.

“Since my nature is this way, it would be easier for you to feel the difference in this weather. If you do this in the summer, the temperature difference is so big that it would be hard to concentrate.”

“When I hear you say it, it seems right, but it also doesn’t seem right…”

Ayla crossed her arms and trembled, moving slightly around the boundary. When she glanced over, she saw that Mathias and Ayla were following suit, although they had puzzled expressions on their faces.

“I wouldn’t make you do any weird or ineffective training, right? By the way, I felt the magic this way too.”

This was a completely true fact. I even did it in the bitter cold, shivering in thin clothes, in accordance with the saying that the greater the area of skin exposed to magic, the greater the effect.

At that time, I had so many thoughts going through my head whether this was actually possible and what he was telling me to do, or if he was just harassing me under the pretense of training because I seemed to be slacking off lately.

However, after I realized the magic power naturally through that training, I couldn’t help but be amazed at how efficient and intuitive this method really is. Except for the mental power consumed in the process.

“Princess.. So if you say you felt magic, what should you do?”

“That’s right.. When you first feel the magic, it can be a little vague..”

What should I do? I thought about it carefully and picked up a small stone. Is this enough?

“If you concentrate your magic power in your hand, you will be able to break small stones like this with just your grip strength. Let’s make this the goal of this training.”

I squeezed my hand lightly. With the sound of pizza passing, the sand that had been stones just a moment ago scattered. Cosette looked a little tired, but honestly, even if two commoners were like that, Cosette, a noblewoman, shouldn’t react like that.

.

.

.

“Oh my… I’m finally starting to feel better.”

“Phehehe.. Aila, you look like an old man.”

“Be quiet. You’ve been sitting in front of the campfire playing all day..”

Ayla blew her nose and wrapped her hand around the cup containing the hot drink. In the end, none of the three could properly realize the magic, but they decided that it was a bit difficult to continue, so they stopped for the time being.

It would be really stupid to catch a cold while training, so I brought the three of them who were shivering to eat. When it’s cold, hot soup is the best.

“Okay, here’s the food. It’s super hot, so don’t touch the dishes, ladies.”

A plump man with a warm face like the kind old man next door said as he placed a pot on the table. I glanced at the pot and there was a red soup, but it didn’t smell spicy. It must have been because of the red-fleshed fruit.

It was a thick stew with large chunks of meat and vegetables. Various foods, including bread to eat as a side, were soon placed on the table, and Ayla began to serve stew to each person’s plate.

The large chunk of meat that took up all the space on the plate looked quite burdensome at first glance, but it was cut into pieces with just a light press of a spoon. When I put the soft meat in my mouth, I could feel the rich aroma and taste of the stew all at once. It was good.

The man who said that one pot would be enough because the portion was so large when he first ordered, looked relieved when he saw Cosette quickly finishing off the stew and other food, and left the remaining pot on the table. This wasn’t his first time coming to this restaurant, but maybe he hadn’t seen Cosette then?

While I was quietly eating my meal and watching them chattering away about trivial things, suddenly a loud noise was heard from one side of the restaurant. Naturally, we stopped talking and looked in that direction.

Judging from the familiar faces, several boys who seemed to be in the same grade were fighting. To be exact, several of them were stepping on one person, and the one being stepped on kept screaming.

“You little bastards! Do you think you have any value just because you have so many? You guys who have nothing!”

Even as several men kicked and swore at each other, the one being stepped on continued to scream loudly. As expected from a mess like the Academy, fights were a common occurrence.

“These days, there are so many people who go around picking fights by saying things like that. So…what should I say…by saying things that divide people into classes.”

Although Ayla mumbled something, it wasn’t hard to understand what she meant. She probably meant that they were picking fights because of the class differences between commoners and nobles. It wasn’t something that was particularly surprising.

The majority of the men either got tired or were annoyed, so they kicked the store a few times and spat before leaving. Judging from the fact that they paid the bill and left, it seems like they weren’t some kind of reckless thugs.

“I don’t think I was confident enough in my skills to pick a fight with several people on my own… But I see a familiar face…”

Mathias muttered. He must mean lower class. From what he said, he seemed to be looking down on commoners, so he must have been a lower class noble. The man stood up unsteadily, dusted himself off, and went outside.

“Sigh, I lost my appetite because I saw something strange.”

As she said this, Cosette put down her spoon. However, there was no food left on the table.