episode_0163

Episode 163 Exchange Meeting (2)

Surely, I….

“To be making a pledge at this age….”

Suddenly, my mind goes blank. The sentence I read out loud a moment ago comes to mind, and I feel embarrassed.

Estella, that damned bitch, said I just had to stand there. Thanks to her, I’m having a doggone experience.

Tap, tap. Just then, someone tapped me on the shoulder and spoke to me.

“Saint, you did a great job!”

It was Estella, the woman who put me in this state. She was smiling brightly. I glared at Estella because I was so displeased with her appearance.

“What’s wrong…?”

“What’s wrong? How can you say that right now?”

“I, I really don’t know…. I didn’t drink, and I didn’t do anything wrong….”

“……Haa.”

Yeah, I’m the one who’s wrong for getting angry about this. I just decided to understand it as my heart being wicked.

Actually, Estella didn’t seem to know either. Her only fault was asking me to come out as a representative with her.

Still, since I was resentful, I pinched and pulled Estella’s cheek as punishment.

“It hurts!”

“I told you yesterday, it’s supposed to hurt.”

I stopped after doing it moderately.

“Uuuu, Saint is bad….”

Estella rubbed her bright red cheeks with both hands. Once her cheeks were flushed, they didn’t calm down easily, so she rubbed them for quite a while.

“More importantly, why are you here? You must be busy.”

The Saintess had a lot to do at the exchange meeting.

Like now, she has to stand in front of others as a representative of the students, and she has to walk around the areas where each activity takes place to show her face. She moves non-stop during the exchange meeting.

“Can’t the Saintess come to see the Saint?”

“…….”

That’s true, but. It feels strangely bad….

Is it because I feel Lana’s presence in her tone? Her way of speaking changed just from being together for that short time.

“Don’t use that tone.”

“Huh? Why?”

“If I say don’t use it, don’t use it.”

I said, pulling her cheek again.

“Ueee, it hurts….”

“Quiet.”

I ignored her and kept pulling her cheek. But this time, I didn’t put any strength into it and just pulled it lightly.

But the cheek fat that stretched out like cheese and was soft and squishy gave me pleasure. So I keep touching her cheek. I’ve felt it before, but it’s seriously addictive.

After a while of doing that, I let go because I had another schedule.

“Go now. I have to go participate in the exchange meeting too.”

But Estella didn’t leave. She stuck right next to me and said with shining eyes.

“Saint. Would you like to go with me? It’s much better to look around other places with me than to participate in the exchange meeting….”

“No.”

I cut her off and rejected the offer.

“Ah, why…. I really prepared a lot of fun things for Saint….”

“Don’t make a pitiful face. You keep doing that since last time?”

“Tsk, not even granting the only Saintess’s request!”

“It won’t work anyway, so go quickly.”

“Saint, you’re bad!”

Estella crossed her arms as if sulking and turned her head. I looked at her and said as if muttering.

“If you come out like that, I can’t help it either. I was going to let you drink alcohol today if you did well.”

At that moment, Estella shuddered. I could feel that her ears were perked up and all her nerves were focused on my words.

I took out a bottle of alcohol from my subspace and opened the lid. A fragrant scent of alcohol spread out. Eventually, Estella, unable to resist the temptation of alcohol, turned her head.

Of course, her face was still that of someone who was sulking, but her voice was not.

“Do, do you think you can persuade the Saintess with just alcohol?!”

“Don’t want to?”

“Even if I like alcohol, 1 bottle is not enough…!”

“Then 2 bottles?”

I took out one more bottle from the subspace. Then Estella shouted urgently.

“Okay! Okay, so close the bottle first!”

“You’ll do well, right?”

“I’ll do that, so please close the lid! That alcohol shouldn’t be exposed to air for too long!”

Only after hearing her confirmation did I close the bottle.

“I’ll give you the alcohol after you finish all your schedules today, so keep that in mind.”

“Tsk, taking advantage of other people’s weaknesses….”

“Then you should drink less alcohol.”

“How can I quit alcohol!”

After pulling her cheek once more at that absurd answer, I got up from my seat.

“See you later.”

“Yesss…. See you ‘a little’ later, Saint….”

It was suspicious that she was emphasizing ‘a little,’ but I left the room.

***

“Kyle, see you after this!”

“Okay.”

Lana waved her arms from side to side and left.

There were students who were mages like Lana beside her, and an elf who was at the front of the line led them. The first exchange activity for the mage students was conducted in the Green Domain.

Elves were most famous for their spiritism, but their magic was not far behind. It was known that, excluding dragons, the race that used magic the best was the elves.

Moreover, although the operational methods were very different, there was much to learn from spiritism, so the mage students were sent to the Green Domain first.

“Hyung, are we going to the World Tree area too?”

“Why, do you want to go?”

“Of course I want to go! It’s elf magic, no less!”

Evan shouted in an excited voice. Even though he had already reached a considerable level, his curiosity about magic was still the same.

“You would’ve learned from Elena, right?”

“Hey, is that the same as this? And Elena said she can’t use all of the elves’ magic either. There are so many different types.”

“That’s true.”

There was no way the elves, who had used magic longer than humans, had only a few types of magic.

“Well, to answer your question, we’re going. However, you won’t be able to learn anything related to magic when you go.”

“That’s a bit disappointing….”

“You came as a student in the Knight Department. If you want, you can make a suggestion to the Divine Academy.”

“Ugh, do I really have to do that….”

Evan was deep in thought, but it was actually unnecessary worry. It wasn’t like there was no free time during the exchange meeting, and anyone could enter the Green Domain as long as they had the permission of the elves or the World Tree.

It was then.

“Magic is convenient, but it’s less cool than actions performed with the body. So it’s better to focus on physical training than magic, kid.”

Someone suddenly cut in between us. It was Hatan, the tribal chief of the Beastmen, whom I had seen during the Monster Season.

“…Go early. What are you doing, making the kids stand around?”

“I’m sorry, Saint. I was late because something interesting is happening at the arena right now.”

I wonder how interesting it had to be to be late. Those guys are crazy about fighting, so there are a lot of problems.

“Enough with the explanation, just guide us. And get rid of that tone too. You came as a student now.”

“Haha, should I, Saint?”

He started speaking comfortably as soon as I gave him permission.

Anyway, a guide to show the students around had arrived. Hatan immediately led us with the Beastmen he had brought with him.

For reference, the professors of each academy were probably preparing things at the location where the exchange activities were taking place. They didn’t just come to manage the students.

Like that, we headed to the Red Domain following Hatan. Then Evan asked me.

“But hyung. What kind of person is the Red God?”

“To put it simply, a fighter.”

Red.

The divine name is the God of Struggle.

As the name suggests, Red is a god related to fighting, so he is only interested in fighting and only thinks about that.

You can tell just by looking at the personalities of the Beastmen. They act like that because of the personality of the god they serve.

However, we can’t ignore the fact that Red was the most outstanding among all the gods when it came to martial power. If you put aside everything else and just look at strength, no god can follow him.

“Oh… then are there any special things that are only in his domain?”

“There’s the arena.”

The forge, the judgment seat, the shelter.

If these three are places that represent Orange, Yellow, and Green, then the [Arena] is the place that represents Red.

Fights take place here every day, and someone gets hurt or dies every day. For that reason, the Red Arena was a famous landmark in the Ustia Holy Kingdom.

Fighting. Because there’s no spectacle as stimulating as that. The sight of flesh and blood splattering is a tremendous pleasure. So the arena is famous enough to compete for 1st and 2nd place among the domains of the Six Gods.

But that’s also why they take the students to the arena. Because there’s nothing better than fighting for those who use their bodies, like knights.

“If you go to the arena, you’ll just be fighting all day.”

“Oh… is that hard?”

“It’s hard. You’ll probably even think you want to die?”

Of course, because they’re students, the extreme events that happen in the original arena won’t occur. Still, the arena is a space born for fighting. If you participate with an ordinary mindset, it’s hard to last long.

Perhaps having heard my words, the students from Trianis and other academies gulped. They seem to be scared because I said it directly with my own mouth.

“Everyone’s scared because Saint said that. What will our Beastmen think?”

“What else, they’ll think we’re crazy about fighting.”

“It’s true that we like fighting, but we know when to restrain ourselves. We teach the Divine Academy students that way too.”

“Yeah, right.”

I know something, so what’s the point.

“Okay, we’re here.”

In the meantime, we had arrived at the Red Arena.

-Waaaaaaah!!!

-Uuuuuuuu!!

Even though we hadn’t even entered yet, we could hear the cheers and jeers. It’s so noisy that my ears are about to explode. The arena doesn’t have any days off, so that kind of noise echoes every day.

“Let’s go in for now. It looks like it hasn’t ended yet.”

Following Hatan, we entered the inside of the arena.

The Red Arena that we entered was really big. Its area was 10 times the size of the Trianis Academy’s stadium. So we had to move for a while.

Moreover, there were a total of 6 arenas inside. Among them, we were going to the largest central arena, which was located in the middle, so it took even more time.

The central arena that we arrived at was a mess, as expected.

Kuuuuuung!!

Kwaaaaang!!

All sorts of loud noises exploded, and dirt and stones scattered, and blood and flesh were smeared on the fragments.

In the center of the arena, where a fierce battle was in progress. At that scene.

“50 years is a long time to be doing it! Why don’t you come out now!”

“I’m sorry, but I’ll be doing it for 10 more years, so it’ll be hard!”

A lion and a tiger. Two Beastmen were spewing fighting spirit and fighting for rankings.