A Doll Seeking Freedom

The meat-eating issue between Riana and Rimia ended peacefully with Rimia succumbing to my meat dish and acknowledging meat consumption.

Riana did scold me with praise-like criticism, saying that the elf race’s food culture would undergo a major change from now on and that it wasn’t peaceful at all, but that’s another matter.

After resolving Rimia’s problem, I had to stack meat like a tower for Rimia who ordered more meat dishes, cook for other observers, and at the same time handle all the orders from students piled up like mountains.

It was truly a lunchtime worthy of being called a short war. I barely finished the lunchtime after an hour-long battle, which might have killed me if not for Myu, and after finishing that lunchtime, I was able to take a considerably long rest.

A rest given to me because there was no third period class after the remaining one hour of rest time from lunchtime.

However, as they say, rest between hard work always passes in an instant, and after the three hours of rest time passed in the blink of an eye, I had to prepare for the next class while complaining.

“Do I have to go out already…”

“If it’s hard for you, should I go instead?”

“No, Myu. You have your own work to do, so I want you to finish that first.”

Myu asked me as I got up from my seat, grumbling. I lightly shook my head at that.

Usually, I could leave it to Myu, but since Myu had been given the role of monitoring Isolde and Morgan, as well as another important task, I couldn’t make her worry about trivial classes.

Therefore, I rejected her offer by patting Myu’s head, who was worrying about me, and checked my reflection in the mirror.

“Hmm.”

The appearance of Aria without much disorder, as usual.

Seeing that appearance, I gritted my teeth at the unfairness of three hours passing while I had just been doing some work and reading a book, but I couldn’t avoid the class that had already come right up to my nose.

If there’s any consolation, it’s that this class only involves basic skills and physical training like the archery class, so I don’t need to pay as much attention as in the magic class.

Moreover, once this class is over, all the classes I’m in charge of for today will be finished, so I was a little fired up.

“Alright. Then shall we go?”

To finish the last class, sword training. I stepped out of the faculty room with confident steps.

---

Rimia was currently in a very satisfied state.

Clearly, just three hours ago, she had been very angry at the news that Riana, who was no less than the face of the elf race as a princess of the elf race, was eating meat, but after being forced to eat meat and learning its taste, she was nothing but happy.

The meat juice bursting in her mouth and the sweetness emanating from the meat itself captivating her nose and tongue. The honey sprinkled on top beautifully harmonized and enhanced that sweetness, and the pre-sprinkled spices cleanly finished the mouth that could have become greasy.

It would be a lie if Rimia, who had fallen into that ecstasy because the first meat she ate in her life was a dish by Yeonhwa, a chef who could be called the world’s best without exaggeration, wasn’t happy.

Therefore, Rimia, who had learned the new taste of meat, tried an enormous variety of meat dishes during lunchtime, and thanks to that, even now, on her way to observe the fourth period class after observing the third period class after lunchtime ended, she was still immersed in the afterglow of that happiness.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the time to be immersed in that afterglow was now coming to an end.

“Oh, we’ve arrived. Look over there, Lady Rimia.”

“Hm? Have we already arrived?”

Clank──

Probably the sound of the door to the practical training ground, their destination, opening, along with Helestin’s speaking to her, saying they had arrived.

Rimia and Helestin’s had been sticking together until now, probably because they kept talking after their conversation during Kama’s class.

And Rimia, at Helestin’s call which now didn’t even have a slight unpleasantness, came out of the ecstasy of meat she had been recalling and opened her eyes.

“…Ho, hoh.”

But she had to let out a hollow laugh at the scene that began to appear and the shouting that was heard as soon as she opened her eyes.

A hollow laugh that naturally burst out as soon as she saw the scene before her eyes.

“Ahem…”

Helestin’s standing next to her was also clearing his throat as if embarrassed, and seeing Haran’s face looking at the inside of the practical training ground with a dazed expression from far away, it seemed that Rimia’s impression wasn’t wrong.

Therefore, Rimia looked around the inside of the practical training ground with a disgusted expression.

“Can’t you even cut that properly! You should be able to cut it in one go by now!!”

“But I’ve already cut 30…”

“Hey, just be quiet and cut. You’ll end up cutting more if you nitpick unnecessarily.”

“I think I’m going to die before that…”

Students cutting rocks much larger than themselves with a single sword, while muttering but following the shouts of the reddish-haired woman.

And as some students cut the rocks, as if it was part of the training, several other students carried the pieces of those rocks on their backs and jumped up onto wooden planks connected to the ceiling.

Wherever they went, it seemed that the destination of the students carrying rock pieces on their backs was a huge basket hanging from the ceiling.

“Put them in quickly!”

“It’s almost empty!! We need to refill it!!”

“This is so heavy, I’m dying…!”

The students who brought rock pieces to the huge steel basket threw them all in, and soon, as the basket was filled with rock pieces to the point where the edge was visible on top, the basket tipped over and the pieces inside began to fall towards the floor like rain.

Naturally, under this rain of rock pieces were students holding one sword each.

Towards these students, the reddish-haired woman shouted once again.

“Run for your lives to dodge! If you can’t dodge, cut!! If you can’t cut, die!!!”

“Aaaaahhhh!!!”

“How long do we have to do this?!”

“You over there! You get 10 minutes extra!!”

A Spartan-style class progressing without hesitation, with actions that could be seen as tyrannical.

Confused but orderly, noisy but at a glance full of only shouts of fighting spirit and necessary calls, Rimia stopped looking around the practical training ground and pressed her slightly throbbing forehead.

“To think this is a class…”

From the start, after seeing Professor Kama’s class earlier and Professor Meiel’s class, Rimia had already given up on pointing out unreasonable classes, so she didn’t particularly think to say anything.

It was just that this sword training class she was now observing seemed to be even more intense than those two classes earlier, so her head was hurting a little.

And Helestin’s, who had stopped clearing his throat and approached Rimia showing such a reaction, began to explain to her about the red-haired woman.

“I was quite surprised too… First, let me explain about that professor. That person is the Aria professor.”

“That Aria professor…? Ah, could it be…”

“Yes, she’s the eldest sister of Professor Kama, whom Lady Rimia wants to meet, who eliminated the Sky Island along with Professor Meiel.”

“So that person is Aria.”

At Helestin’s words, Rimia momentarily lost her words and just closed her mouth, looking at the reddish-haired woman, Aria.

That person was the very figure from the information who was said to have cut down the Sky Island.

At first, Rimia had dismissed it as a simple exaggerated rumor that she had cut down the Sky Island with just those two swords, but hearing that she was the eldest sister of that Kama, Kama who pierces clouds with arrows, for some reason it seemed believable.

Right now, she was conducting a class with an even more severe intensity than Kama, so perhaps she might be even stronger than her.

Rimia swallowed dry saliva at the thought that was hard to imagine even though she had thought of it herself, and then suddenly turned her head towards the source of a sound coming from a completely different direction.

Unlike the chaotic sounds coming from inside the practical training ground, a neat sound coming from the side of the practical training ground, where there was a huge wall that could be called a cliff.

At that pure sound, as if a single craftsman was delivering a wholehearted strike to a straw dummy, the gazes of Rimia, Helestin’s, and others who heard that sound, like Mira and Haran, turned towards the source of the sound, and the first to open their mouth at the sight of two girls that came into view was Haran.

“Ah, Arin…?”

A muttering that Haran let out the moment she saw her daughter standing there, holding a golden sword in her hand, with her eyes closed without wavering.

One of the two girls was indeed Arin, and the other girl with orange hair was holding a deep indigo kitchen knife, pressing down on the handle pitifully as if cooking.

And simultaneously. Without anyone going first, the swords and knife of the two were swung towards the wall.

A sound that, just by hearing, seemed like it would only make a scratch, was heard.

However, at the scene that unfolded afterwards, they could realize where the sound they had just heard had come from.

Kiiing───!!

Belatedly, as scars appeared on the wall, a clear metallic sound rang out.

Then, with a cracking sound, the observers all opened their mouths wide as they saw the wall split like a watermelon being cut.

Why hadn’t they noticed, when there were so many wounds engraved on the wall in front of the girls right now.

“To think this is the skill of mere students…”

“This is… As expected of students who learned from the hero who cut the Sky Island!”

“Ha, haha… This is an unbelievable sight.”

All who witnessed this series of events utter words of admiration.

The training taking place inside the practical training ground, cutting rocks and moving the pieces to the ceiling while dodging them, was also amazing, but it was nothing compared to the scene these two had shown.

And Rimia and Helestin’s were also surprised at the scene shown by Arin and the orange-haired girl.

After all, who wouldn’t be surprised at students having such skill?

Rimia opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish as if various things to say were mixing inside her, and Helestin’s rubbed his eyes as if they had become blurry.

It was natural since they were so surprised.

But because of that, those who were there still hadn’t noticed.

A woman who had approached, preciously hugging a book to her chest with staggering steps.

---

Zzzzt──

“Ugh…?”

Myu, who was handling work instead of Aria in Aria’s office with Isolde and Morgan, raised her head at the stinging sensation that suddenly passed through her body.

“This is…”

It was a sensation she had felt once before.

Not too long ago, in the Library of Records in the underwater kingdom.

At that time, it was an inexplicable sensation, so she had thought it was an aftereffect of being severely injured in the battle with Idea and moved on, but why was this sensation being felt again now when her body was fine?

Myu stood up abruptly from the chair she was sitting on at the sensation that raised questions, and Isolde and Morgan, who were taking a break, looked at her.

“What’s with you suddenly?”

“Did something happen?”

The two naturally tightened their guard and picked up their weapons, wondering if some problem had occurred.

And Myu looked at the two and her body where she felt pain alternately for a moment, then just nodded her head slightly once.

“I need to go to Mother.”

It seems like there really might be a problem after all.