Chapter 125: Bear Panties, a Sudden Coldness, and a Strategic Retreat?

“Yuri!”

I said that we would stop by Yuri’s place as a matter of course, but finding Yuri, who had a schedule to see the festival with her father today, in the crowded festival streets was like finding a needle in a haystack.

In the end, we met Yuri again after gathering at the place we had promised in advance to watch Anne’s match.

First of all, Anne’s match was about to begin, so we quickly headed to the staff seating area.

We squeezed into the packed staff seating area, barely sat down in the empty seats, and looked around to see the faces of various people.

There were many familiar faces, such as students who came to support their friends like us, and professors who came to check the students’ achievements, but there were also quite a few faces that I had never seen before.

Some were wearing armor, some were wearing robes, and some were wearing just ordinary clothes.

However, their commonality and difference was that the symbols of the Knights and the Magic Tower were engraved on the conspicuous parts of their clothing.

Griffin Academy is the most recognized academy on the continent, and this competition is a competition to determine the strongest person in that Griffin Academy.

Perhaps they came to see with their own eyes in order to decide how much of an offer to make in advance to bring them to the organization they belong to after graduation.

Or they might contact them first without even waiting for graduation.

Of course, it’s a competition with a lot of entertainment through rules in many ways, and there are quite a few strong people like me and Celian who didn’t participate, so you can’t just blindly believe it.

But that doesn’t mean you can underestimate the 16 students who have advanced to the main tournament, the 32nd round, which is now half of the number after the second day.

“Gravelle from the 3rd grade Swordsmanship Class 2! To your position!”

The announcer’s ment for the tournament, which was filled with hot energy, was a very stiff introduction ment.

The male student named Gravelle, whose name was called, was quite a famous student, and quite a loud cheer rang out as he went up on the stage.

“Anne Kleyn from the 1st grade Swordsmanship Class 1! To your position!”

Anne also slowly walked out of the waiting room outside the tournament stage as her name was called.

Anne’s physique, walking on the stage with small steps, was very small, and she looked so cute that she didn’t really look like she was 18 years old.

But contrary to Anne’s small physique, her striking red hair and a huge greatsword that could easily surpass the height of an adult man, let alone Anne, the owner, were attracting people’s attention.

Since she’s still a freshman, she has no experience in previous tournaments or external activities, and she made a proper impression on the audience with just one day of matches yesterday. So even louder cheers than the student who entered earlier greeted her.

Good. At least our Anne won the audience cheers!

“Anne, fighting!”

Me, Yuri, and Celian also shouted out loud to cheer her on.

It wouldn’t be strange if they couldn’t hear our voices in the noisy situation due to all kinds of cheers, but Anne managed to hear our voices and looked exactly towards us.

Anne, who had been walking towards the center of the stage with an uncharacteristically serious look, found us and smiled as usual with a playful smile all over her face.

As we lightly waved our hands towards Anne, who had found us, so as not to cause harm to the other spectators, Anne raised her other hand, which wasn’t dragging the greatsword, and waved it greatly towards us.

Even so, I wish she would walk while looking ahead.

The two people, who stood facing each other in the center of the stage, lightly greeted each other according to the referee’s progress and prepared for the match while keeping their distance – that was right before.

The match ended quite one-sidedly, in an instant.

While exchanging only a few moves, the opponent’s sword was cut in half by Anne’s single strike with her greatsword raised high.

As expected of a strong person who had made it to the round of 16, the opponent threw away the broken sword hilt, raised his fist, and approached Anne.

Perhaps the plan was to narrow the gap and punch her, or to take away Anne’s weapon.

But Anne threw the sword she was holding to the approaching opponent as it was.

The opponent was taken aback by Anne’s sudden gesture of handing over her greatsword, and by the unexpected weight of the greatsword she received. In the end, she couldn’t avoid Anne’s punches and was knocked out with a single blow to the side.

Something seems to be flowing backwards from the mouth of the person who fell over and fainted, but let’s pretend we didn’t see it.

As the referee, who ruled that the match was impossible, declared Anne’s victory, Anne looked towards us and gave a victory V with a bright face and stretched out her hand.

“Hmm…. Anne Kleyn, huh. She’s tempting, but I heard she’s the next head, the successor. It would be easier to recruit Gravelle, who is from a commoner family.”

“Ian Kleyn, Anne Kleyn’s twin brother, is also said to be highly skilled, so you should try approaching him.”

In the meantime, I can hear voices around me exchanging opinions and evaluating Anne.

Whose friend is this? This much is natural.

For some reason, I felt proud, and since I thought it would be better to go back to the waiting room first and see Anne rather than watching the matches after this, I got up from my seat.

“Anne, congratulations!”

As soon as I found Anne’s personal waiting room and burst into the room, what greeted us instead of Anne’s bright voice was a pair of panties with a cute bear on them.

Although I had seen it often while living in the same dormitory, I was embarrassed by Anne’s sudden appearance in her panties without being prepared, and turned my head away.

“I saw the match well. At this rate, you’ll easily get to the finals.”

Unlike me, who was embarrassed, Yuri and Celian calmly entered the waiting room.

Come to think of it, it’s strange to be embarrassed by the sight of same-s*x people changing clothes.

In response to the two people’s indifferent appearance, I also changed my embarrassed face back to a calm expression and approached Anne.

Of course, I kept my gaze as far away from Anne’s bear panties as possible.

“E, El!?”

However, Anne, who unintentionally ended up showing us her panties, which we happened to see, had no choice but to be embarrassed.

Anne was so embarrassed that she stumbled and fell to the floor because she was caught on the tights that were halfway over her knees as she was taking them off.

Anne’s sturdy physique and mana-enhanced body would have prevented her from getting hurt, but Anne’s butt, which was facing us, was more explicitly showing off her bear panties because of her fallen posture.

Yuri quickly ran to Anne and helped her up at the sight of Anne suddenly falling.

Anne, who got up with Yuri’s support, was embarrassed to show us that she had fallen awkwardly, and her face was flushed red.

“Wh, wh, what are you doing here….”

“What do you mean what are we doing here? We came to congratulate Anne on safely advancing to the quarterfinals. You saw us yesterday, so what are you so surprised about?”

“Th, that’s true, but….”

“Hey, what are you so embarrassed about? What’s wrong with showing each other changing clothes when we’re friends. Right, El?”

“U, uh? O, of course! There’s no reason to be embarrassed.”

Of course, I’m embarrassed.

“See? El also says so.”

“Th, that’s right. Hehe…. There’s no reason to be embarrassed when we’re friends who are the same woman….”

Even while answering Yuri’s words, Anne’s face was still red and she was glancing at me.

…The way she keeps glancing at me, it seems that Anne is suspecting me.

Perhaps she was caught seeing me panicking and turning my face away when I saw Anne’s panties as I first entered the waiting room.

If she was a normal same-s*x friend, there would be no reason to be embarrassed to see panties, so it’s a reasonable suspicion.

Even while she’s changing clothes again, the way she’s glancing at me and blatantly showing me her underwear is as if she’s deliberately testing me.

But there’s no need to worry. I have the genius acting skills to fool Yuri and Celian.

Fortunately, my acting skills worked on Anne, and it seemed that she stopped suspecting me as I continued to look at her with a calm, shameless face while hiding my embarrassment.

By the way, judging from the fact that her face is still red even while she’s changing all her clothes, she must have been very embarrassed to have fallen awkwardly.

“Then I’ll go do the winner’s interview!”

Anne, who had barely changed into her casual clothes, didn’t even have time to talk to us and immediately headed out of the waiting room.

If Anne can go to the quarterfinals, then to the semifinals and the finals, and maybe even win, she’ll be even busier than she is now.

I heard the sound of the waiting room door closing as Anne left, and in the end, only we were left in the personal waiting room without the owner, Anne.

“Yuri?”

And then Celian’s cold voice followed. It’s probably the story related to the penalty that we were talking about in the morning.

…Can I escape for a moment… no, can I go out, Celie?