Once Cory had taken his hands away from his face, I could see that it was slightly red. It was so barely there that I had to look carefully at his pale skin to tell. Cory avoided my gaze as he continued to speak with a small voice.
"I just barely accepted the truth. Stop reminding me like that."
I didn't know what he was talking about, so I thought about it for a moment. Then I burst into laughter. I couldn't stop laughing.
"Oh, right. You're my fan. Puhaha!"
It had been a while since I had laughed so loudly. He was so embarrassed, but still expressed everything he felt anyway. I found that kind of Cory funny.
Cory seemed to be embarrassed: he frowned, muttering, "…..don't laugh."
"Do you want a signature, Cory? A free hug? Just say the word. Oh, you got a handshake last time, right?"
"...I don't need it."
Cory was definitely sulking.
He turned away from me and pretended to read a book. He was silent for a while, as if he was thinking deeply about something.
Cory roughly shook his hand in his hair, then turned back around and spoke.
"...are you really going to?"
I ended up laughing again.
I missed the entirety of morning class for our monster subjugation. The only classes that had their students skip morning class for practical exams were the magic classes and the swordsmanship classes respectively.
The reason was simple. In honesty, the mountains near our school had the occasional monsters intruding in the area, and that was a pretty big problem.
Don't ask why they built a school near monsters. That's an answer that only adults can answer.
Anyway, the magic and swordsmanship classes were important to the school: that was because most of the swordsmanship students were aiming to become royal knights, and the magic students were aiming to work at the royal court of magicians.
So they used us as free labor and called it training.
Younger juniors like me would take care of lower-level monsters like slimes that were located in the lower regions of the mountains. As we grew older, the senior-level students would go higher up the hill and deal with higher-level monsters.
Using students as free labor, what a loan shark thing to do. I promised myself that I would get my paycheck from Hylli when he became king.
"Shuraina, are you nervous?"
Hylli, who was wearing a tight-fitting red battle outfit, stood near the lower-level entrance of the hill. He suddenly spoke to me.
I shook my head.
"I was thinking about how to rip you off in the upcoming future."
"You're not nervous. That's good."
He nodded his head, as if he was used to my response. Hylli had already gotten used to me. Because of that, it had gotten more difficult recently to add more to my Embarrassing Moments collection these days.
The more he dueled me, the more we shared conversations, the faster he matured. It might have been because of me, but I felt that he was getting more cunning as well.
The sad part of all this was that I couldn't see any more scenes that made me cringe. Maybe the shock tactic worked a bit too well: he fixed it all at once. How boring.
The swordsmanship students were all at the lower entrance of the mountain, earlier than the other class. After waiting for approximately ten minutes, we could see a crowd of students wearing wine-colored robes coming closer. In the midst of unfamiliar faces, we could see a head of blond hair.
Hylli and I went over to see Cory in the crowd.
Cory was wearing the hood of the robe. After belatedly seeing Hylli and I approaching him, he came over to us and took off his hood.
His blond hair was a mess. Hylli saw Cory's messy haiir and laughed, and Cory combed through his hair with his fingers. When I brushed it down for him, he just stood still.
Hylli looked at Cory and began to speak.
"This practical exam, I guess the magic students are also partaking in it."
Once his hair had been calmed down a bit, Cory took his eyes off of me and looked at the prince.
Cory nodded his head as he responded.
"But for the magic students, this was optional. The magic students whose focus isn't attack-based all skipped out."
Hylli muttered, "The magic class...….." and thought about it, then opened his mouth.
"Then Swanhaden will be skipping out of this exam then, too."
Hylli seemed to be looking for someone in the crowd of magic students. He kept looking around. I listened to Hylli's muttering and thought about it for a moment. Swanhaden….. it was a name I had heard often.
Oh, that's right. Swanhaden was a childhood friend of mine and Hestia's. But even if we were technically childhood friends, we weren't very close.
Swanhaden was a childhood friend from a long time ago, and was the son of a duke and one of the main characters. It was hard to find in in school, so I had briefly forgotten about him.
When Hylli spoke about Swan, Cory tilted his head in confusion.
"What do you mean, skipping out of this exam. He's not even attending the academy yet."
"Oh, that's right. I forgot. Swanhaden is currently studying abroad in the south of the continent."
"Aren't they at war?"
"That's what I'm saying. Who goes to study at such a fearsome place? Although, he's even scarier than a war so he's probably fine."
It looked like Hylli, Swan, and Cory had known each other for a while back.
Well, they were all children of very powerful families, so it would've been weird if they didn't know each other. If he had met with me, a lowly child of a baron, it definitely made sense that they would know the prince and the son of a marquis.
"Swan's probably going to be matriculating as a third year junior."
"Oh, okay. Honestly, I just wish we'd never meet."
Hylli's face was wooden. Cory laughed at Hylli's reaction.
"You're scared of a child of a duke when you're the prince?"
"Scared, me? No! Think about his actions!"
"Why, I'm okay with Swan."
"Well, you and him always played well. I'm scared of the two of you being together than Swan himself."
"Well, you were fun to tease to Swan messed around with you a lot more."
Cory finally admitted it.
"Anyway, isn't Swan a friend of yours too, Shuraina? I've heard that the Blanche Dukedom and the West family met often for business reasons."
"Our families work well together, but we really don't have much of a connection."
I thought about Swanhaden as I responded.
Swanhaden was the prettiest out of everyone I had seen before. He was definitely handsome, but I always thought of him as prettier than handsome.
When we were younger, Swan came to our home often with his father and used our training hall. I trained everyday in our halls, so I bumped into him often. Hestia was always next to me, watching me practice.
He had a face of an angel, but his expression was endlessly cold. He seemed to hate any sort of skin exposure, and always wore a long black shirt that went up to his neck even during practice.
He always wore long shirts and long pants. I once saw him wearing a short-sleeved shirt. His body was covered in scars.
He always ignored me when I spoke, and always pretended to listen whenever Hestia spoke. I kind of knew that he was a character in the novel, so I assumed that was why.
I couldn't really recall his personality in the novel, but I didn't think it was very good. Well, it was hard to find a normal person within the main male characters.
But watching Cory and Hylli, I thought that the novel got it wrong. Or was it because we were still young?
The three of us continued our conversation. We didn't really have to get in line, so we headed to the testing zone together.
The lower region of the Augran Mountains were just close to being plains. There was a slight upwards hill, but it was just a grass-covered field. The test level was very low, probably because we were still kids.
There was a blue slime that was squirming across the floor. It was cute, but when a group of humans approached it, it seemed to become cautious.
The blue slimes began preparing to attack when they were faced with humans. I felt bad watching them. What crimes did they commit for us to subjugate them? When I asked Cory, I was told that apparently, they spread poison in crops, and attacked, melted and ate young children. And apparently they even work as catalysts for bigger monsters.
Listening to all of that, I internally fixed my mindset. I would definitely kill them all.
"Okay, everyone should be here by now! Our practical exam will be graded by how many essences you collect from slime monsters! The first part will be slimes, the second part will be yailons, and the third part will be catching lactonils! The first part of the exam will take place for half an hour, and if you sustain any injuries you will be instantly teleported to the school nurse, so do not worry too much."
Whoa, I could feel some sort of magical effect from my clothes. That was teleportation magic? I had just assumed that it was some sort of protection magic. Our school rocks.
I thought about the different ways I could alter my clothes as I held my sword. When I thought about killing slimes, I thought about a certain RPG game and laughed.
"And begin!"
As soon as the swordsmanship teacher finished speaking, the academy students ran towards the monsters holding swords and magic staffs. Occasionally, they would join in teams and defeat the monsters together. I inadvertently began working with Cory and Hylli.
Because there was a limited amount of slimes, everyone tried their best to earn a high test score. I didn't run. It was difficult and annoying. I didn't feel the need. Anyway, my goal wasn't just some high test score. I wanted a higher club ranking, and a high club payment.
"Cory, I'm going to lure the slimes to one area. Can you burn them all at once?"
"That won't be hard."
I looked towards the prince and asked him something too.
"Sir, seeing how these slimes are working as a group, it looks like the leader of the slimes might be around here somewhere. I've heard that you've subjugated monsters from a young age. Would you be able to find the leader? Please don't kill them."
Hylli nodded at my request, then looked at me as if I was suspicious. I pretended not to notice and just nodded with him. Then, Hylli seemed to ask a question with his face, then headed out to find the king slime.
As Hylli disappeared, only Cory and I remained. I used a hallucinatory magic to lure the slimes with a smell that they liked. The slimes slowly came closer to Cory and I.
When Cory saw that the slimes were all coming closer, Cory asked how I was doing that. I responded that I was just using one example of hallucinatory magic.
When the monsters had been lured into a single area, Cory held me up with his magic. I put up a shield and yelled at him to shoot his magic at me. Then, Cory frowned, floated me upwards, then separated me from the slimes. Before the slimes could chase me again, he burned them all with fire magic.
I was shocked at Cory's magic. Hylli's sword skills, too–this had to be some kind of hack. It was just simple fire magic, but the effects were incredible. No, even the color was different. Normal fire magic was red, but Cory's magic was blue. It was so hot that I squinted at the heat.
"Sorry, it's a bit hot, right?"
Cory threw a cold water barrier my way to keep me cool as the slimed died off. I was grateful for his care and mouthed, "Thanks." Cory smiled thinly and nodded my way.