episode_0052

“Huh? Princess!”

“Huh? Oh. Cosette.”

“Yeah, oh, Cosette. No! I haven’t seen you in months and what’s your reaction? ”

Cosette came running up to me and circled me, spouting off a series of words. I could see Agnes walking slowly behind me. It was strange to hear her. I hadn’t seen her in months, and I never thought I’d meet her like this on the street.

“But if Cosette hadn’t formed a team without me in the first place, wouldn’t that not have happened?”

“..I don’t really know what you’re talking about! Bye to Ayla and Mathias too!”

Cosette avoided eye contact and ran towards Ayla. While watching the two of them squealing and making a fuss, I slowly walked over to Agnes.

“Anies, how have you been?”

“Um.. I don’t know. Should I say that I’m doing well.. Princess?”

“This one. I had a lot of fun experiencing various things. Mathias also got a lot stronger. Isn’t he stronger than Cosette now?”

Agnes snickered. At first, he thought that Mathias couldn’t believe it, but that wasn’t the case.

“If the princess thinks so, it’s probably true. Cosette has been writing with me ever since the start of the competition.”

“Death? You two just kept doing that?”

“Cosette confidently says that’s the most efficient. I don’t care because I’d be useless in a battle, but she’d do it with me too…”

Cosette shook her hands, shaking her body. Just thinking about it was terrifying. Well, writing isn’t that hard, but if you think about doing it for months…

Since transcribing texts quickly and accurately is quite a difficult task, the reward and guild evaluation had to be good. I knew it, but I didn’t do it because I didn’t feel the need to, but Cosette must have endured it with the sole intention of beating me.

That’s great, Cosette. But didn’t you say you would be a knight who could do one person’s job? Why waste the opportunity to experience various real-life situations like that?

When I returned to the Academy, I felt the need to make Cosette’s training much more difficult. Since she had no confidence in using her body, she would use her head in vain. It was not appropriate behavior for a knight.

“I think our score will be pretty high.. Are you okay, princess? Even if we lose to Cosette?”

“Well.. I don’t really care about grades, so it doesn’t matter.”

“..Wow, that’s unlucky.”

I pulled Agnes’ soft cheeks with both hands as she spoke cheekily. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this soft and fluffy sensation. Agnes patted my arm with a sad expression, so I let her go.

“Where are Cosettes going? We were just taking a walk without any particular purpose.”

“We’re the same. Since our schedule is almost over, I was wondering if there was anything fun to do.. Huh? By the way, princess.. Where did the sword go?”

When Agnes asked me about my empty waist, I answered calmly.

“Ah. It’s broken.”

“You broke the princess’ sword!? Is there anyone that strong!?”

Agnes opened his mouth in surprise. I said something like, “Well…” and trailed off.

If there’s anyone strong enough to break my sword, the closest one is Yugram, so it’s not exactly a lie. I only asked if there was one, but he didn’t say that he broke my sword.

“First of all… Should we all go back to the dorm? It seems like there’s nothing to do.”

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.

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As we returned to the inn, leaving Cosette and Ayla behind, whose mouths showed no sign of stopping, wondering what on earth they were talking about so interestingly, unexpected news greeted us.

“My sword!”

Ayla, who had been chattering behind her, ran out like lightning. The weapons that Ayla had been waiting for had arrived, completed at the blacksmith shop.

I thought that since the two of them originally had their own weapons and scabbards, they would just send the swords wrapped in something like cloth, but they arrived in quite a fancy scabbard.

Even in Ayla’s case, it seemed to have been copied exactly, down to the useless detail of the scabbard being divided into white and black. Ayla looked at it with admiration for a moment before drawing her sword.

Whether what Ravin had said at that time was reflected correctly or not, I could feel the subtle difference in the length of the two swords even though I was just watching from a distance. Of course, Ayla, who was holding it in her own hand, seemed to feel it even more.

“Oh, oh!”

Ayla took several stances, placed the new swords on the table, and pulled out the ones she had been using before. She took another stance, just as she had just done.

“Oh! Oh! Different, different!”

Have you forgotten how to speak because of excessive joy?

Ayla continued to compare the swords one after another, muttering only that they were different. Mathias, who was watching them, also ran over and grabbed his sword and pulled it out. Mathias’ eyes widened.

“Do you feel the difference, Mathias?”

“Yes.. Yes! It’s light, just like the blacksmith said.. But not only that, there’s something.. something different!”

Mathias too… No, he’s not that good with words. I gave up and picked up my sword.

Indeed, I think I know why Ayla and Mathias were mumbling and not explaining it clearly. It was a very subtle difference. I received the same sword I always used, but the grip, or should I say the handle, felt different. Perhaps when we met, they observed our physiques and adjusted it accordingly.

I flicked the blade with my left index finger. Ting, ting. A clear sound rang out. I tried the same thing with the sword that Mathias had originally pulled out. Indeed, there was a big difference in this part. Could this be the difference in the raw materials?

I picked up the new sword again and let some magic flow through it. I could feel a clear difference.

Every time I strengthened my sword with magic power, I would feel some kind of backlash. It felt like there was a certain threshold, and the magic power had to be applied beyond that threshold before the magic power could begin to exert its power. However, with the new sword I received, I could barely feel that kind of backlash.

As soon as I sent the magic power, the sword accepted it smoothly. Just like water seeping into paper, the magic power naturally and quickly colored the sword. Indeed, I thought that if there was this much of a difference, there was enough reason to spend a lot of money on a sword made of good metal.

I gradually increased the output of my magic power. I slowly added magic power in the same way that you would pour water from a kettle, gradually increasing the incline to slowly increase the speed at which the water comes out. This was to carefully observe how and how it differed from before.

I couldn’t convert it into a precise number, and I didn’t have the confidence to explain it to others, but I put in enough magic power to roughly estimate ‘this is the limit without damaging the sword’, and the sword blade was fine. If it was the sword I was using originally, the sword blade would have trembled or vibrated, or in some other way, it would have shown a dangerous reaction.

“Oh, princess?”

I heard Ayla calling me, but I ignored her for now. It was more important to resolve my curiosity first. I quickly poured my magical power into the blade. A pure white frost formed on the smooth blade that seemed to reflect my face. It was the effect of my magical power output exceeding a certain level. This was happening because my attribute was ice.

‘But Yugram can use healing magic. So if he pours out a huge amount of magic power, he can heal everything around him at will?’

I suddenly became curious. Why haven’t I ever asked this before? I’ll ask later.

Anyway, the new sword was much better than I had expected. The guild leader kept nagging me so much that I asked the blacksmith to make me a sword at a reasonable price, but it turned out to be a huge gain. I slowly withdrew my magic power and put the sword away.

“It seems that Ravin’s skills are better than expected. He’s really great. Ailana Mathias will have a bigger influence.”

“..We wouldn’t have guessed what the princess just did?”

“Well…you’ll find out later.”

I don’t know about the two who can’t use their magic power properly yet, but these weapons will actually be more effective on those two than on me. If you have a lot of magic power, you can use it however you want, but if you have less, you have to use it very efficiently.

With so little magic power, there are many things to think about, such as whether to use it to strengthen the body or to strengthen the sword, so if the magic power used to strengthen the sword is significantly reduced, it will be very noticeable.

I went back to the table and took a sip of the tea that Yugram had given me. As always, the explosive flavor filled my mouth. It was Flèche.

Now that I think about it, it’s a funny story. When I was living only within the Academy branch, I was so bored and uninterested that I wanted to go out and play somewhere, but when I was actually out like this, I missed the Academy.

Anyway, both of them are boring and there is nothing to do, but the academy was a place where I could pass the time by wandering around. Even though I didn’t know what they were doing, I could always observe my seniors running around in a hurry, or I could observe the knights sparring with each other in the training ground, and it was fun to train my brain. Of course, training Mathias and Cosette also went by pretty quickly.

I want the competition schedule to end quickly so I can go back to the academy.

I sipped my teacup with such hope in mind.