Ch.6Chapter 6. Only I Can Do the Kidnapping (2)

“I think we’ve arrived.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Are you tired? Should I have them prepare a meal right away?”

“Yes. I’ll wash up and come down.”

Elaine snapped out of her daze when she suddenly heard Maria’s voice.

In terms of pure physical activity, she had moved less today than during her usual daily training, but for some reason, Elaine felt more exhausted than usual.

‘312 points…’

What had been floating around in Elaine’s mind and making her tired was the score of ‘312 points’ that a commoner named Ryu had achieved in today’s exam.

When she learned that the exam event was ‘Golem Hit,’ Elaine tried her best not to show it, but she couldn’t hide her joy and excitement.

Although it was known as the most difficult test among the Academy entrance exams, Elaine regularly trained at home with automatic golems far more advanced than those at the Academy.

She wasn’t particularly ambitious about getting first place, but Elaine gave her best effort in the exam and when she recorded 177 points, she secretly thought she would be first.

However, 177 points was far from enough to secure first place.

After all, that black-haired commoner named Ryu had scored an incredible 312 points.

‘How on earth…’

What made Elaine even more exhausted was that she hadn’t been able to ask Ryu how he had dealt with the golem.

“Um, huh? Where are we? Excuse me. I think we’ve stopped at the wrong place.”

Elaine followed Maria out of the carriage after hearing her look around in confusion and call out to the coachman.

The carriage had stopped at the entrance to some forest.

Already mentally complicated from the day’s events, Elaine couldn’t help but frown at the carriage stopping in such an unexpected place.

“W-what are you all doing! Hey!”

“Excuse me! What are you doing?! Sigh, I had a bad feeling when they said you were a last-minute replacement.”

Maria was raising her voice and shouting at the coachman, but he ignored her completely and continued calling out into the dark, empty forest.

‘What’s going on…?’

Sensing something instinctively wrong about the coachman’s desperate calls, Elaine moved her hand to the hilt of the sword at her waist.

Keeping her senses as sharp as possible, she gripped the handle and was about to draw the sword when—

“Eek!”

*Swoosh*

“M-miss?”

‘What was that?’

Elaine didn’t miss the strange scream she heard for just a fraction of a second.

There had been no sign of anyone nearby, but suddenly a man’s scream came from not far away, then immediately disappeared.

She reflexively drew her sword and surveyed the surroundings, but still couldn’t sense anyone besides Maria and the coachman sitting on the carriage.

“Ugh. Was I spotted?”

“Hmm?”

“Argh!”

While Elaine was focusing on finding whoever might be hiding nearby and ignoring the coachman, he suddenly made an unexpected move.

He pulled out a dagger from inside his clothes and lunged toward Maria.

It happened too fast for Elaine to react.

As the coachman’s dagger aimed precisely at Maria’s neck and Maria instinctively closed her eyes—

*CRASH*

“Gak-!”

The coachman, or rather the suspicious person, who had been threatening Maria with his dagger, suddenly collapsed to the ground when something appeared from above.

Making a somewhat vulgar and comical sound as he fell.

“W-what just happened…?”

“Phew. That was close!”

*Swoosh*

“Who are you?”

Unlike Maria, who couldn’t properly assess the situation in the darkness, Elaine immediately pointed her sword toward where the coachman had fallen and spoke coldly.

Someone was sitting cross-legged on top of the coachman.

Judging by how they had prevented the attack on Maria, they didn’t seem hostile, but Elaine found this whole situation extremely suspicious.

“Ah, we met earlier, didn’t we?”

“…Huh?”

“Um, I wonder if you remember my name. It’s Ryu.”

“Huh?”

Though she couldn’t see him clearly, Elaine recognized who the man sitting on top of someone was as soon as she heard his voice.

As he introduced himself, it was indeed the commoner Ryu, who had left a strong impression on everyone with his shocking valedictorian speech and scored over 300 points in the Golem Hit test.

“Why are you here…?”

“Ugh… M-miss, do you know this person?”

“Heave-ho.”

*THUD*

“Gaaak-!”

As Elaine lowered her sword, Ryu stood up.

At the same time, another strange sound came from the man who had been pinned beneath him.

“Well… I happened to see someone doing something bad. If they were doing it secretly without me knowing, that would be one thing, but when I see others doing this kind of thing, it kind of hurts my pride.”

“…What?”

“Anyway, I left one of them conscious, so you can interrogate him.”

“Um…”

Elaine briefly glanced at the unconscious man behind Ryu before looking back at Ryu standing in front of her.

Though she couldn’t quite understand what he was saying, Elaine found herself nodding unconsciously as she listened to him.

“Well, hmm.”

“W-wait a moment!”

“Yes?”

“I have a question.”

Elaine called out urgently to Ryu, who seemed about to end the conversation.

While she had many questions about Ryu, from how he had subdued the man now lying unconscious to various other curiosities, there was one thing Elaine was most curious about.

The question that had been on her mind all along, the one she had considered asking Ryu while sitting next to him during the entrance ceremony but ultimately missed the timing for.

“Oh, yes, yes. Ask me anything. Hehe.”

Ryu nodded as if he had been expecting this, crossing his arms.

Seeing this, Elaine sheathed her sword and spoke.

“How… did you score over 300 points?”

“…Huh?”

“The entrance exam. The Golem Hit test. Seeing how you suddenly appeared, are you a magician? I heard from other students that you took the test with bare hands. No matter how I calculate it, I can’t figure out how to exceed 300 points using pure martial arts without magic…”

At Elaine’s question, Ryu froze in his pose for a moment.

He stared at Elaine with a surprised look, as if wondering if that was really what she was most curious about in this situation.

**

<Sub-quest (1-2) ‘Beginning of a Relationship’ completed!>

<Quest clear reward will be given.>

“Yahoo.”

I couldn’t help but hum at the system message appearing before my eyes.

The sense of achievement from clearing a quest felt surprisingly good.

So this is why people play RPG games and go through all that trouble to clear difficult quests without any information.

After safely finishing that nonsensical valedictorian speech in front of countless people and the entrance ceremony ending completely, I was greeted with a new quest.

I had simply sensed suspicious presences outside the Academy instinctively, but was surprised when a quest suddenly appeared. After seeing the quest content, I immediately jumped into it.

It was unpleasant to see someone trying to commit a crime like “kidnapping” when I was right there.

If they had commissioned the Black Shadow Corps for the kidnapping, that would be one thing, but I didn’t particularly want to see another organization doing it.

Besides, the kidnapping target was that girl Elaine who had been sitting next to me throughout the entrance ceremony, so I had grown somewhat fond of her.

I might have been too relaxed, as things almost went wrong, but I managed to complete the quest to prevent Elaine Sinclair’s kidnapping just in time without incident.

“What an unusual girl.”

Elaine Sinclair was quite different from what I had imagined—a little, no, quite a lot different.

In a critical situation where blood might have been spilled if I had been just a little late, the first thing she asked after I helped her was how I had scored over 300 points in the entrance exam.

Elaine didn’t seem satisfied with my sincere answer that I just happened to score over 300 points. When I told her I wasn’t a magician after she asked if I was one since I couldn’t honestly explain my abilities, she became even more fixated.

Was it really achieved with pure martial arts? Was it possible with swordsmanship? Could I give her even a small hint? And so on.

Elaine showed no signs of backing down easily, and I truly had nothing more to say except repeat “I just did it naturally.”

Because honestly, that’s just how it happened.

While our conversation kept going in circles, people from the Sinclair family arrived, called by Elaine’s servant. When they discovered that the coachman had the mark of the “Black Crows,” Elaine finally seemed to realize what kind of situation she had been in and thanked me.

And just now, Elaine had departed again for her original destination, the Sinclair family residence.

She offered to take me wherever I wanted to go, but I firmly declined.

If I were alone, I could get home in the blink of an eye—why would I waste time riding in a carriage?

Anyway, I closed my eyes as I watched the carriage gradually disappear from view. It was time for me to go home too.

*Whoosh*

‘To think the girl sitting next to me was a Sinclair. Getting friendly with the Sinclair family wouldn’t be a bad thing.’

Feeling my body float slightly—a sensation no longer special to me—I opened my eyes again.

With the familiar smell of my office, I saw Addy staring blankly at me.

“Whoa!”

“…I should be the one surprised.”

“W-what? Why are you here?”

“Because there are documents you need to check. I wasn’t planning to have you review them today, but…”

Addy handed me the papers she was holding.

Even though I was the one who suddenly appeared in the office, Addy wasn’t surprised at all and calmly handed over work for me to do.

Perhaps because it was late, she wasn’t wearing her usual uniform-like formal attire but comfortable clothes instead—a rare sight.

“How was the Academy exam?”

“Hehe. First place, of course.”

“Oh, so you’re the valedictorian?”

“I didn’t plan on it, but somehow it happened?”

“…I told you it would be better not to stand out.”

“There was a good reason for that. Besides, the valedictorian only shines briefly during admission. After that, I can naturally blend in, right?”

“Well… I hope you can. Since you’re here, could you look at that now?”

“Sigh, what is it now?”

I finally turned my attention to the papers Addy had handed me.

I had roughly guessed that it must be an important matter if she had left it in my office at this hour, but I had been avoiding it because I didn’t want to think about complicated matters anymore today.

“It might be good news in a way…”

“…Oh.”

Indeed, the content written on the paper wasn’t something that required complicated thinking.

As Addy said, it was closer to good news.