episode_0029

“Hey, I thought you were just a simple fool, but you’re actually a scary person. How could you chop up a 12-year-old girl like that?”

“It wasn’t me, it was Liliane? And she tried to kill me first, so this is enough. Don’t you know cider? Cider?”

“These days, is it considered cider to beat a young girl with a wooden sword?”

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“I have something to say.”

After Katrina finished apologizing for what may have been the umpteenth time, she spoke to me as her accompanying student left.

“What is it?”

“Of all the guys I’ve touched, there are two who haven’t apologized, and I’ll never apologize to one of them, even if I die.”

It’s quite a curious story to hear.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t curious about why Katrina, who had put aside all her pride and endured all kinds of humiliation in front of me and kept apologizing for her promise, didn’t want to apologize even if it meant dying.

“Do you know that guy named Gilbert?”

“Ah..”

hmm.

By coincidence, he was the first boy whose name I learned at this academy.

Besides, it wasn’t a particularly good meeting.

I heard it was an intermediate class last time, but was she being bullied by Katrina?

“You seem to know what I mean. I hate that guy so much. He always says things like “woman” and “woman” and spouts out nothing but pretentious nonsense. He thinks he’s some kind of knight in a good story.”

“I can give in a hundred times and ignore the fact that he’s talking like that. What’s more annoying is that the guy who’s talking is so fucking weak. At least if you’re going to protect someone, you should have at least a minimum level of skill. It makes me mad because he’s not even capable of that and just keeps talking.”

It was such an undeniably valid statement that I couldn’t help but nod my head.

Is that so..

Boy Gilbert. Unfortunately, his grades in the Knights’ College didn’t seem that good. Of course, even if we take into account that Katrina’s skills are in the upper-middle tier, the difference would have to be quite large for the expression ‘damn weak’ to come out.

“The guys I’ve apologized to so far are guys I just messed with for fun. I don’t care about them anymore and I won’t mess with them, but that guy is truly an eyesore, so even if I apologize, I’ll keep messing with him. That’s why I can’t apologize.”

In other words, even if you apologize in front of me and say you won’t touch me, I’ll end up touching you anyway, so you can’t apologize?

You’re strict in strange places.

“Well.. Please do it moderately.”

This was all I could say.

What can you do if you don’t like it? Try to like it? Just ignore it? If it could be fixed with a few words like that, you wouldn’t have hated it in the first place.

All I could say was to tell Katrina to be moderate so that she wouldn’t get so angry that she’d beat the Gilbert boy to death or vice versa.

“Then who is the other one?”

“That’s you.”

Katrina immediately bowed as she answered.

“I’m sorry for picking a fight for no reason. I apologize for everything, including talking behind your back, interfering, and even bothering your friend. I’m sorry.”

Did you intentionally leave me last? I was a little surprised because I didn’t think it would be me. In fact, when you asked me to apologize, you were just trying to get on my nerves. I didn’t think you would keep it to this extent, so I felt a little embarrassed.

“Ms. Katrina, you are such a bonus woman.”

“Is that an insult or a compliment?”

“That’s a compliment.”

“Then thank you.”

“I thought it was a curse word because it was the first time I heard it,” Katrina said with a grin. The atmosphere was warm, but there was something that absolutely had to be mentioned. It was very important.

“Ms. Katrina, I’m sorry, but there’s one more thing I have to apologize for.”

“..What is it?”

that..

“I have never once called myself a mask princess. Please apologize for that too.”

Katrina’s face hardened for a moment, but she snickered when she heard what I said.

“Okay, sorry.”

Katrina said with a smile and waved her hand as she left. It seemed like I was joking to lighten the mood. I was quite serious though.

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The first year was truly leisurely, and time passed quickly without any incidents. This is how an ordinary day without any incidents or accidents passes by so quickly.

Listening to lectures every day, training Cosette in a fun way, studying and observing Cosette’s eating habits, and sometimes going to Agnes’s dormitory with Cosette to take care of Agnes in the name of a study group.

In the meantime, I observe Agnes, who eventually conquered all the stores in the restaurant district, or consoled Agnes who obviously lost the top spot to me in the final exam, or wanted to console Cosette who was spectacularly eliminated in the preliminary round of the knighthood tournament, but was fidgety because she didn’t know what to say.

If it were published as a book, it would be too trivial to include in the main story, so to fill up the volume of the single volume, they would occasionally include it as a side story at the end. Before I knew it, a year had passed as I enjoyed these ordinary daily lives.

I woke up in the dormitory bed that I had become accustomed to, enduring the excruciating pain that the curse always brought. When will it be before I can get used to the excruciating pain that I feel when I wake up? I don’t show it, but it hurts.

As I was getting up from my seat and trying to relax my heavy body, Yugram brought me a bundle of papers.

“This is the information for the competition.”

The match.

It’s the biggest event of the second year and can be said to be a test that is conducted throughout the entire semester. When I looked through the materials to see the details, it was quite… severe.

“Isn’t it too advantageous only to the top ranks?”

“If you don’t like that, then you’re competent.”

That’s obvious, but with this academy’s teaching methods, isn’t it impossible for ordinary people to become competent? I think the polarization of grades will only get worse.

The competition is, so to speak, a test conducted as a team. It is very simple if you think of it as solving various tests and assignments that are conducted during the semester as a team and competing on the results. The important thing is how the team is organized.

First of all, the condition for team composition is that at least one person must have completed a class from each of the three departments: common, technical, and civil service departments. Of course, it is not recognized just because you went for one or two days, so students who do not attend classes properly will not even be eligible to participate in the competition. Of course, such children should not be interested in grades from the beginning.

For example, since I am taking all three classes regularly, the team formation requirements have already been completed. In my case, it would be okay to participate alone, and although I am taking the engineering department classes, if my grades are not good, the standard way to form a team is to find a team member to fill in for me.

So how do you get that team member? This is the part where I was wondering if the top ranks were too advantageous.

Very simply, it is in order of grades.

Literally, if your grades are low, you can’t even protect your own teammates.

Here is a student named A. A, who had average grades last semester, teamed up with B from the journalism department, with whom he was usually close.

However, since B had some of the highest grades in the journalism department, many people were after him, and eventually, C, who had top grades, came and said, “Give it to me,” and the team was split.

However, even so, looking at it this way, it can be said that there are too many disadvantages to the College of Engineering. It is not a matter of generalization, but there are a mountain of cases among the students of the College of Engineering who have never taken a single class from the Common or Civil Service College. It may be good to listen to it, but what can you do if they don’t want to do it?

So, of course, my grades are bound to plummet, and because of that, if I’m at the top of my class in journalism but can’t form a team with the people I want to form a team with, wouldn’t that be too frustrating?

So, based on the results of the tournaments held among the students of the Knights’ College, the students of the Knights’ College are also given the right. In the case of Cosette, who was eliminated in the preliminaries, she would naturally not be able to refuse the offers from most of her opponents. Of course, Cosette’s written exam scores were also good, so that wouldn’t happen.

In short, it is a good structure for students with top grades to gather together and form a team. If you have good grades in written exams or tournaments, you can form a team with the teammates you want or close friends, and your grades will improve as well.

If that doesn’t work out, you’ll end up forcing yourself into a team with people you’ve never talked to before, or in the worst case, you won’t even meet the team requirements. In the latter case, people who just pay their tuition and play around like rascals and people who study hard will end up getting the same grades. It’s a scary thing.

Well… I’m the head of the team, so I don’t have to worry about the team, and I can just drag Cosette and Agnes into the team and make a team of three. No need to overthink it.