episode_0021

After the free essay test, which was both hellish and simple, Cosette and I were in the training ground for the knight lecture. It was large enough for hundreds of people to move around and move around. Among the sparsely populated students, there were quite a few faces I had never seen before, but as I looked around, I saw a boy standing alone, not associated with anyone else.

The children who join this academy are all 12 years old, including me, so they are still growing, so it is natural that their height varies. However, considering that the humans in this world grow much faster than in the previous world, the boy’s height is probably quite short. It is possible that he will suddenly grow a little later, but I don’t think that will happen.

The boy’s body, or rather his clothes, were covered in dirt. It seemed as if he had been in a fight somewhere. I could hear the students around him talking. They said that they had been listening to the article lecture since a while ago. In other words, he had been listening to the same lecture three times in a row.

Of course, it is very inefficient. Of course, you are free to choose what class you take and how you take it. However, if you take the same lecture multiple times, it is not helpful to you. Professors just keep giving lectures on the same content, so you will only hear the same content three times. Well, it may help in terms of review, but…

Since there are dozens of students, it is impossible to go through the process individually. If you ask questions individually, of course you will be answered, but… If you think about it simply, anyone can figure out what it is. Unless you are quite an idiot, you cannot not know. And that boy did not seem to be that type. But why? I was quite curious as to why he made this choice.

Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.

I was a bit nervous, but that was it. I didn’t have the courage to go and ask him, “Why are you taking the class so stupidly?” and I didn’t have any reason to do so. I thought it was just that way and if I observed him, I would either figure out the reason or he would quit. It wasn’t really important. What was important was that muscular guy who looked like a professor.

“Hello! I am Bearclaw, who will teach you the practical skills of the College of Journalism. It is not my real name, but it is more convenient for you to call me this way.”

That name really suits it fantastically.

He was literally a bear-like man. He had taken off his uniform top and was wearing thin underwear, and his thick and firm muscles were clearly visible above it. His neck was thicker than my thighs, and it seemed like the sword would break if I struck it with it. His shoulders were a bit exaggerated, so if I got sleepy during class, I could lie down for a while. On top of that, his face was unnecessarily innocent, and his name Bear Claw went perfectly with it. So, was that his stage name?

“Oh, Bear Claw! That’s cool, Professor! But my friend doesn’t give up! Her name is Mask Princess!”

“Haha, did you already come up with a stage name? It’s still a good name that’s easy to understand and simple.”

Please shut up, Cosette.

At that moment, most of the students in the lecture looked this way. I want to die. If it weren’t for my poker face ability, my face would have turned bright red and I would have wanted to die even more because my embarrassment would have been completely revealed. No, wait, but if I didn’t show it and looked confident, wouldn’t people think, ‘He’s proud of the embarrassing name he gave himself?’

“I will teach you the various abilities that a knight needs. Most obviously, it includes combat abilities, how to maintain equipment including weapons, and how to survive in extreme conditions. And the most important thing for a knight is..”

Bearclaw suddenly stopped talking, took a deep breath, and showed off his bulging, shiny muscles in various poses. Is that so? Did the reincarnated person spread bodybuilding here? I don’t know what the poses are called, but I could tell at a glance that it was something like that. And his muscles were so impressive that exclamations came out from all over.

“I want to say muscle! But it’s stamina. Physical strength is essential for all professions, not just knights. Health is the most important. Of course, I strongly recommend that students who aspire to be knights increase their muscle mass. After all, after a long battle, when your magic power is depleted, the only thing you can rely on is your own body itself, and it’s common sense that even if you use the same amount of strength, the one with a bigger physique and the one who weighs more is stronger.”

“Okay, then let’s start with the most efficient, simple, and excellent training to build stamina.”

ah.

“It’s the first day, so let’s do it moderately! Let’s just do 50 laps!”

Bearclaw smiled brightly and pointed to the starting point, saying, “You can start there.” So, you want us to run 50 laps around this training ground, which is so large that hundreds of people can practice swinging their weapons?

I’m really going to die.

.

.

.

“Oh..die.. princess.. I’m dying..”

“Cheer up, Cosette. There are only two laps left.”

A moment later I was running alongside Cosette, who was half dead.

To be honest, I had always thought that Cosette would naturally become a knight. Not because I was stupid, but because I just had a feeling. So when Cosette kept pace with me in the beginning and kept chattering nonstop, I thought that she must have good stamina because she was a noble who wanted to become a knight.

But after just a few laps, it started to make a sound like it was dying, and now it’s halfway walking. But it shows its stubbornness in that it keeps moving its feet without stopping.

I grabbed Cosette’s hand just before she stopped and forced her to move, then took her to the shade and put a pillow on her lap. I’d only seen pillows on her lap in novels, so I wondered what it would feel like to actually do something like that, but no particular thoughts came to mind.

While fanning Cosette, I looked around and saw that there were quite a few students who had finished before us. Compared to the students who were still running, we would probably be in the middle or lower ranks. Looking at this, I had some doubts.

I’m not a big deal, but Cosette is probably an upper-middle-class noble and in the highest class. But that’s only a written exam score, and it’s completely separate from the practical exam scores of the current knight department. There are probably quite a few students in the middle or lower classes who finished before us.

If that is the case, then why was there a need to divide the class into written exams? At first, I thought it was natural to take exams to enter school, but when I thought about it, it felt uncomfortable. If they were divided into knights and civil servants, shouldn’t they also take exams in the same way? It’s a natural question. After thinking about it for a while, Cosette, who seemed to have calmed down a little, opened her mouth.

“Princess.. Me, my whole family is knights.”

It probably means that they are a family that produces many knights. If you don’t say outright that they are nobles, but say it indirectly, it’s easier to communicate. Although Cosette doesn’t seem to have any such intentions.

“But I was very weak physically since I was young. So my dad and mom were both shocked at first, but they knew I was smart and didn’t really care. Rather, they were happy, thinking that a smart child was finally born in our family.”

“So I thought that I would become a great and tall person later and be filial to my mom and dad, but then suddenly something terrible happened at home.”

“Among my relatives, an older adult got involved in something really bad… So all the knights in our family started to have their abilities and loyalty questioned.”

This is a story that happens quite often. I don’t know about the lower-ranking knights who are used as semi-long-term knights, but for nobles above the mid- to upper-ranking level, they will eventually perform duties related to the inner part of the kingdom, so such evaluations will be even more strict. Of course, there will be checks and balances from other families.

“In this situation, if I become a civil servant, won’t the attacks on my family get worse? Because of that kind of thinking, things got difficult for me, so I ran away here.”

Of course, Mom and Dad never said anything like that, but Cosette’s face, as she muttered, was the darkest expression I’d ever seen.

Yes. He must have suffered a lot because he was not only good at studying but also smart for his age. He worried about the rise and fall of his family at a young age and was worried enough to change his career path. Furthermore, as a nobleman, he chose to enroll in this foolish school, which could be considered shameful.

In a way, the reason he approached me was probably because he wanted to be friendly with me since I looked like a noble no matter where I looked. But that’s not a bad thing. I don’t really care. It might be different for a commoner, but for a noble, every move is naturally calculated to be related to the family.

It might be because she felt relieved that I seemed like a daughter from a wealthy family, or something like that, when she suddenly told me all about her family history when we first met. In fact, it was hard for me to respond and it was a little embarrassing for me to hear.

“But after taking this lecture today, I started to wonder if I could really become a journalist. ”

“Well, if you don’t give up, becoming a knight is easy”

I said, patting Cosette’s head. At those words, Cosette opened her eyes wide for a moment and smiled bashfully.

“Thank you, princess. You’re so kind.”

Cosette seemed to have taken my words as mere consolation─but I had merely stated them as facts. If Cosette did not give up, I was confident that I could easily turn her into a knight worthy of the title.

I’m talking about the crazy training I’ve personally gone through.