This is kind of bothersome.
As I was walking back to the main building of the lion class I once again had to pretend not to notice these three idiots following me.
They were the three classmates I just couldn't stand. They were arrogant and thought they were something special just because they had a bit of power. They don't even doubt that they would really be able to defeat me as easily as they think.
They've been following me for the last few days straight already. The first time they followed me I didn't think much of it, but when they started to follow me the day after and another day and so on until it was 5 days in arrow I of course knew their real intention.
They thought I didn't notice them, well normally I wouldn't be able to, but I they don't know of my enhanced. I feel a bit of pity for them, after all they don't even know that I can hear and feel every one of their steps.
I was already stronger than them by now, it was just as Katsumi said a few days before. They may be quite strong for their age, but in reality they really don't amount to much compared to the princess.
And especially the extra training with Katsumi helped us both to get a lot stronger. Even though it was only one match most of the time it could last up to an hour at times.
That was the time of the day I looked forward to the most. She also improved a lot and from her masters reactions since enrolling at the academy it seems like she grew stronger even faster. It was the same as with me.
I keep wondering if the academy might really just make you grow faster naturally, but then again, when asking the teachers they would always just say that what makes you feel like you got stronger a lot quicker was the advantages of the academy and having teachers such as them.
Well I might have to ask the principal himself to know the whole truth, but that alone wasn't worth it to go and visit him.
I also didn't trust him at all since the last time I saw him at the infirmary, where he told me about the inheritances. If I really have an inheritance than what tells me that it's really bound to the one, who formed the blood pact or whatever with it.
What tells me that I can really trust him with anything he said?
And right now I don't even necessarily need all of those supposedly great things, which are said to be inside the places you can only enter with the inheritance.
It wouldn't be wise to just take any good item, which would allow me to get stronger quickly. There was no guarantee besides what the principal told me, so I would try to not use the inheritance or even summon it until I was outside of the academy or strong enough to win against the principal himself.
Either way, how long do these idiots still want to follow me.
"Let's play a little with them."
If they want to follow me than I may as well annoy them a little. I don't need to care anymore whether or not they know how strong I am, after all I am now stronger than all of them.
It would just complicate my situation a bit, but nobody would believe them, after all if I just denied their accusations the teachers couldn't just believe them rather than me. They would just think that accusing me of hiding my strength would get me in trouble or something.
After all our teachers must know that I am not really liked by them and although they don't dare to do anything to me while we have our lessons they still look at me with gazes filled with hate.
The only problem would be if they all attack me at the same time, but then 'she' should also interfere to help me.
So I decided to stop walking and stood still pretending to look at the beautiful scenery of the forest laying in front of the city of Raiken.
I wasn't that far away from an alley, so they could think of taking that chance. Well what are they going to choose?
"What is he doing?"
He's the weakest of the three boys, who had been tailing me. I'm pretty sure he's only following, because he doesn't like commoners like me and easily made friends with the other two boys.
The three boys were standing around the corner just waiting for me to continue walking.
"He's just standing there, nobody else should be here at this time. We could use this chance!"
The one speaking now was the 'leader' of the three. He was the oldest and also the one, who had the highest standing in terms of nobility among them. He was also the one I hated the most, he had a similar opinion as the first boy, not liking commoners is a common trait for them, but that's also their greatest weakness.
I don't exactly know their reasons, but I just assume they think that they are better than commoners, because of their high standing in society and the way they had been treated since birth. Like they were better than all of the commoners.
I honestly hoped that it wouldn't be like this, but reality can often be disappointing, I knew that good enough.
"Are you sure? Maybe one of the teachers is looking out for him and he also has connections to the princess. They are also always training together after our lessons, he somehow managed to see me that one time, but it was probably just a coincidence."
He's the one who at least seems to have some rationality left in him. I wonder what he would do if I beat his friend, who also happens to be their leader. Would he attack me and stay loyal to his friends or would he try to flee or even get onto my good side, because of my strength.
It's interesting to hear them talking like they are so much smarter than me. Oh boy if only they knew.
As they were about to approach me the situation suddenly changed, because of the appearance of one person.
Oh, so 'she' is finally making a move.
"Why are you following him?" The voice came from behind and caused the boys, who were still discussing to get taken by surprise and turn around to look at the person, who just talked to them.
"Who is- wait, princess?" All of a sudden their leader seemed to not be so sure about their plan anymore. I would love to see what is happening, but I can only listen to them and even that is taking me quite a bit of effort from this distance.
"I asked you a question." Her voice was cold like ice and she obviously seemed angry. Is she doing it because she doesn't seem to like nobles, or because of another reason?
"Oh we were just walking back to the main building, we are going to go now."
They already wanted to turn around, but she wouldn't let them off the hook that easy, would she?
"Did I allow you to go? I just want to talk to you, do you not have time to talk to the princess?" Even I am getting a bit scared just from hearing her voice. I would really love to see their faces right now.
"Oh, of course not princess. What's the matter?" You could hear the fear in his voice and also a bit of confusion.
"I'm going to make this quick."
*swoosh*
I could hear the wind quickly accumulating at one place.
She actually used her wind magic against the likes of them! What a waste, but now this is only getting more interesting.
"I'm going to warn you just this once. If you approach 'him' again it's not going to be good for you. If I do have catch you again, well you would wish you wouldn't have done it."
The threat was easily able to understand, so it was indeed a mixture between her hatred against nobles and me.
"... Of course, princess." Everybody knows of her skill, they wouldn't dare to say the wrong thing in that situation.
And although they are pretty dumb to actually tail me just because I'm a commoner they still wouldn't dare to not follow Katsumi's words. After all the standing of the royal family is a lot higher compared to any other family in Raiken and their family heads wouldn't be able to protect them against the royal family.
As she already went to leave she turned towards them once again to say one last thing.
"Oh, and by the way. I am not doing this for him, it's for your own safety."
And after that she walked right past them. I had to control myself not to laugh out loud. I couldn't help, but chuckle at the thought of their faces filled with fear and confusion.
If they are really dumb they would approach me again, well nobody can be that stupid, right?
"Oh, hey Yori, you are still here?"
I pretended to only notice her now and turned around.
"Oh, yes I was just looking at the scenery...
"I could also hear the birds chirping. It sounded really interesting."
I couldn't help, but say that last part.
"Well, you seem be pretty happy today." She sounded the same as when she normally talked to me, all of the hatred she had in her voice a few seconds ago was seemingly completely washed away. People can really change from one moment to another.
"Well it just feels like today got a lot better all of a sudden. Are we going to train together later?"
"Sure, I also wanted to talk to you about..."
The days passed like that, waking up, getting taught by the old man and the 'master swordsman' and after the lessons train even more with Katsumi. I also read the books in the bookshelves in my room and learned a few useful things.
Every lesson we got taught something different. The way of teaching magic in this world is of course rather complicated, because of all of the different kinds of magic, but there were still ways to teach magic to everyone.
For example concentration exercises, where you need to manipulate your magic in certain ways. For example using your magic to draw different kinds of shapes, like circles or squares in a different range as fast and clean as possible. Those kinds of exercises were available to every magic using the basic elements.
It was even possible with darkness magic, which was a lot different from normal elements like fire or water.
If you didn't concentrate good enough you would fail by either taking too much time or not getting the shape completely right.
And the more you failed the more frustrated you tended to get.
While everyone gave their best with the exercises I tried to just do the least amount possible. I tried to just be average at best.
I knew that if I wanted to stay at the academy I couldn't get too strong. If the teachers noticed my quick growth in strength they would probably tell the principal and in the end he might even want to take me as his disciple.
I really didn't want to bother with a personal master.
And even if nothing happens if I show my full strength I still knew that I would get too strong too fast. Katsumi is already at a level, which seems to be way ahead of everyone else and although I can feel myself constantly closing the gap in strength between us it would still take a while to catch up to her.
If there were two students, which are too strong for their age, then people would surely try to get rid of me. They wouldn't be able to do anything against the princess, but they know that I am at least not of any noble family they know. It's always like this, the more you are in the way of the nobles the more they will notice you.
And in the end everyone fears the unknown, they will come to fear me and might even send assassins, which i would have to kill. I would need to threaten them or even leave the academy to not get bothered.
And although playing with all of these arrogant people would be quite fun it tends to get repetitive quickly and you start to believe everyone to be such an idiot, which could lead to becoming arrogant yourself.
So in the end hiding my strength was the way I decided to go.
And like that 2 weeks had passed and then something changed.
"Where are our teachers?" It was a girl, which I wasn't really that interested in. She had blonde hair and her magic was fire magic. Normally she wouldn't even be noticeable enough for me to even remember her name, I only remembered it, because I heard it so many times.
She asked the two teachers in front of us, it was obvious that everyone was confused, but soon they would understand and I already had a guess as to why the other teachers were here.
"It's been two weeks since this year started and every two weeks the teachers in charge of a class change. It's so you can experience different kinds of magic and weapons."
It was a woman, who seemed to be no more than 40 years old. From the way she spoke I could tell that she was quite nice, or at least wanted us to think that. She had blue hair and wore a dark blue dress, which didn't really seem to be made for fighting. She honestly looked a lot younger than she probably is and her mana also seemed to be only a bit weaker than the old man's.
I was pretty sure she was the 'Calm stream', Mazi Saki.
"You will also be training at another place from today on, it's a bit more dangerous, but you'll also be able to advance further. You will train there until it's time for the first tournament."
It was the teacher, who was in charge of the brown robes, the Kitsune class. I think his name was the 'Devil of fire', Hi Kosuke. He had flaming red hair and also wore a fitting light red robe. He was very tall and had a greatsword on his back, he seemed to be older than the woman, but at the same time not older than the old man. Probably around 50.
"Now then we shouldn't waste any more time, let's show you to the place you will be training at for the next few months."
From our normal training grounds we proceeded to walk even further. The area seemed to be kind of familiar and I soon realized where we were.
The trees, the colour of their leaves. This reminds me of the forest.Not the one I had entered before reaching the cave, the on after I left it!
Do they know of the death of the gigantic beast I had seen a few weeks ago? If they don't know about it they wouldn't lead us here, would they.
And they also couldn't possibly have missed it, it was so big that you you would be able to see it easily even from a few kilometres away.
I mean this place is indeed quite good to train, but the normal beasts are too weak for me and the other students.
This can't be it, can it?
But then we crossed the barrier and arrived at a place, which looked completely different. I knew the barrier still applied here, but after crossing it we actually reached a place, which was so different from the forest I had expected.
We stopped and I finally had time to really observe my surroundings.
"This is the place you will be training at. It's called the plane of Trinum and it's at the edge of the Kingdom of the dwarfs. The beasts here are a lot stronger than you and to beat them you'll almost certainly need teamwork."
"But don't worry, we teachers will observe you and in a state of emergency protect you. But if we really have to save you, then you will have to train more until you are ready to come here again. That would be a wasted opportunity, so I would suggest to not hold any grudges or at least lay them down while fighting."
I couldn't feel any beasts yet, but in the distance I heard a few noises. The atmosphere also felt different and the teachers sounded like they wanted to reassure us, but at the same time knew that it would be hard for us to win against these beasts.
And forming a team wouldn't go well with some of these idiots, especially the ones, who were actually trying to follow me the days before. I am sure that they aren't going to just be in a team with me. But well, maybe they can prove me wrong and show me a little bit of intelligence.
But well, this is developing in an interesting way. Let's see what's going to happen at this place. This could really be a lot of fun and I would be able to fight together with Katsumi.
Either way, this place feels a lot more dangerous than even the forest I was in before. I'd definitely try to not show my whole strength, but I wasn't so sure if I would really be able to do that.