The Swan that I remembered had a cold personality. Whenever he dueled against me, he always beat me without even attempting to let me win. Well, I would've been furious if he let me win.
I only remembered him staring me down with a cold glare whenever I approached him. He seemed like a child that was missing something. He seemed like he didn't know how to smile, and only knew how to swing a sword with all his strength.
"I don't think he was like this even until last year. Seeing him occasionally smile with that dead face of his right now just gives me the chills. It probably won't last long, right? I hope it doesn't. I've never been so annoyed by someone's smile in my life."
Hylli said as he swung his sword. There was quite a bit of strength in the swing. I was standing pretty far away from him, but I felt the gust of wind from his swing. I understood Hylli's emotions and nodded.
After saying that, Hylli stared a hole through my face.
"You should be especially careful."
I scrunched my face at Hylli's seemingly random words.
"Me? What about me?"
"Swanhaden is especially wary of you these days. He's collecting information about you."
"....!"
Damn it, just as I thought. Was his treatment for me some new kind of bullying? Was he trying to figure out what kind of a person I was before he started to pick on me? I didn't know too much about white magic, but maybe he collected information about my skills while he pretended to treat me? Man, that would give me the chills.
Just as I expected, Swan, I couldn't lower my guard against you. The other three male characters from the novel turned out to be pretty decent kids, but the childhood friend character seemed to be the blackened character after all.
According to the rule of crazies, there was always one nutjob in a group. If three of the male characters were normal, Swan...I'm sorry, that was just how the rule went. But Cory said something different.
Cory took another strand of my hair to braid jokingly before beginning to speak.
"Swanhaden? Don't worry about him. You don't have to, at least."
"...…..?"
Contrary to my expectations, Cory just told me not to worry about him. I turned around and faced Cory with a surprised expression. Cory seemed surprised to suddenly meet my eyes.
Trying to explain, Cory paused his braiding to figure out how to word things. It was probably related to Swan.
"He's similar to me, after all."
But the explanation that Cory gave left a lot of questions unanswered.
"Mm, maybe not. I don't know."
Cory resumed his previous activity and began braid #20. I was about to tell him to stop, but Cory was so good at braiding that I just let it be. He wasn't generally great with creating things with his hands, but he must've improved after braiding my hair so often.
"But he's not a kind person, so be careful. He's definitely acting suspicious these days."
And Cory ended up warning me about him too. Was Swan that scary of a person?
My wariness against Swan continued to grow by the day. One of the reasons why that was happening was because people kept approaching me to warn me.
The blue class students especially came to me and confessed all of Swan's evildoings in the class. Like putting mustard in their ice cream, or stomping on someone's hopes and dreams with his words. I listened to them and learned that there was a myriad of ways for somebody to bully others.
One day, even Yves came over to warn me.
"Get away from Swanhaden right now."
And just as I thought, Yves' advice was similar to everybody else.
"I wasn't even near him in the first place."
Other than the time that he healed my ankle, I had never even had a conversation with him.
Yves scanned me with narrowed eyes, then sighed with relief when I finished explaining everything that had happened. He stroked my hair a few times.
"If he tries to talk to you, tell me."
"What's the problem with him for other people to keep giving me warnings?"
I barely even bumped into him. Swan looked like he bumped into Hestia more often than me, so shouldn't people warn Hestia instead? And anyway, I was already putting my guard up against him without your prompting.
Anyway, when I warned Hestia to be careful of Swan, she had an incredibly satisfied expression on her face.
"His actions are extremely suspicious these days. I've never seen him move with such caution before. I did know Swan for a few years before, but what I'm seeing these days feels incredibly unfamiliar."
Yves rolled his silver eyes in thought, then frowned as he explained.
"What's so unfamiliar?"
Yves tried to continue to speak, but quickly shut his mouth when he saw a hand on his shoulder.
The owner of the hand had silver hair, and now had blindfolds on instead of a shirt.
The blindfold had cute sheep characters on it, but I didn't understand why he kept covering his eyes. Suspicious.
But Yves was caught mid-talking behind Swan's back by him.
"Hyung, I get that you're old, but stop spouting nonsense and go back to the dorms to get your stuff. I'll take you to the nursing home."
"Well, you're the one with white hair. You're closer to being elderly."
Yves swiped off Swan's hand on his shoulder. Swan wiped his hand on his pants. It was obvious that they hated each other.
Swan was about to respond to Yves' words, but seemed to notice me and muttered a small, "Oh." His eyes were covered, but it felt like he wanted to keep looking at my direction.
"White hair? Can't you just call it silver? I just love how you're so shy and can't be honest to yourself. I really admire that."
"...….?"
Swan's attitude suddenly changed. Until a moment ago, he was like his usual, demon-like self, but now he had donned the smile of an angel.
Yves didn't say a word, but he watched Swan's changed attitude and words with a disgusted look.
"Hyung, I know your way of showing affection is talking behind my back. If you want to be close friends that much, just tell me."
"Um, I'm sure you said something about beating me to a pulp if I pretended to know you..."
"That's what the other students were saying as well. Everyone is just bad at communicating."
"What a scammer."
When Yves tried to get away from Swan with me in his arms, Swan grabbed Yves' collar and started to drag him away.
"Hyung, don't you want to go and drink some tea? Let's go back to our dorms and have an elegant tea party. I'll take some of Cory's snacks."
"Tea time...… In other words, hot water torture?"
Yves, who was obediently allowing himself to be dragged away by Swan, waved his hand goodbye. I waved my hand back.
Yves continued to let himself be dragged away by Swan like that. Swan just silently dragged him away, ignoring all of the taunts that Yves aimed towards him.
Swan continued to walk, back turned from me, then took off the blindfold.
The practical exam for the swordsmanship classes didn't change for our second year. It was, like last time, monster subjugation.
Unlike first years, however, second years went higher up in the mountain to fight against mid-level monsters.
Sadly, Cory was not going to be participating during this year's monster subjugation. Apparently, some of the magical devices in school had issues and they had dragged in a ton of magic students to help fix it. Cory, being extremely skilled, had been forced to join the fray. Thanks to that, apparently Cory was going to receive full marks for all the practical exams for the year. Although he would've received full marks regardless.
Moreover, even Hylli was pulled out of this subjugation as well. He had been pulled because his skills had gotten too high-quality. He was so skilled that the school had pulled him out so he could take the official swordsman exam that was sponsored by the kingdom.
I didn't have any feelings about Hylli being stronger than me now. Hylli had been leagues above me in terms of swordsmanship in the first place, and there was going to be a consistent difference in our baselines to begin with.
But I definitely helped Hylli improve his skills.
When Hylli and my skill differences became so stark that our duels had shifted to him coaching me, I thought to myself that I couldn't just receive help like that. So I figured out a way for me to help Hylli improve his skills as well.
In order to help Hylli improve his skills, I decided to use the monsters in our monster village. Our club, which had been sponsored by multiple professors now, had increased our research zones. We had even received the highest level monsters to raise in our club.
The highest level monsters were strong enough to massacre an entire order of knights if they wanted to. I wanted to take out one such monster and have Hylli go against it. He had always dueled against people who were weaker than than him, after all. I wanted this to symbolize my want for him to have a bigger goal in sight and to go forth.
Hylli waved my suggestion off, saying that he was too weak to go against such a high-level monster, but I explained to him that if his life was in danger, the monster would magically get smaller in size and would fall asleep. After pondering over it for a while, Hylli accepted.
But Hylli fought against it much better than expected. He avoided the monster's unpredictable movements and had attacked its weak points furiously. When I asked him later on, he told me that fighting against me helped him figure out how to predict his opponents' future movements.
And that was why Hylli, at such a young age, had become a participant in the kingdom's official swordsman exam. He would simultaneously be taking an exam for him to be accepted as an outstanding swordsman. You crazy bastard, you and your ridiculous skills.
But hearing that it was thanks to me really made me feel good.
Anyway, the conclusion was: I was going to the subjugation all aone.
Well, to be completely accurate, I wasn't alone. I thought of what Hylli told me with a weird expression on his face.
'Well, Swan's skills are absolute. He's good with both the sword and with magic. It won't ever come to that, but if the situation doesn't look too good, pair with Swan. But I wouldn't recommend it, frankly.'
Hylli had suggested that I work with Swanhaden during the monster subjugation as if it was reasonable.
Cory seemed to be slightly worried. He had stopped me from going and had told me something.
'Swan is strong, so if you really need, pair with him. Mid-level monsters are incredibly diverse, and they have different patterns so you can't lower your guard.'
Both of them seemed to be worried about me; they gave me stern instructions, and promised to join once they were done with their tasks.
Anyway, it kind of felt like the two of them were smothering me.
Mid-level monsters were easy now. I had already gone to the mountains late at night and subjugated them a few times before to get samples for our club project. Considering that monsters became more brutal at night, it was assured that I would have an easier time now during the afternoon.
The problem was the students who had newly joined the swordsmanship classes. The kids who were friends with each other had already made their own groups, so the students who hadn't joined any groups could be in danger. Well, those students would be helped out by the teachers or other students even if I didn't help.
But I was feeling weaker than usual. I also felt chillier than usual, as well. Maybe it was because winter hadn't completely passed. I put my cold hands on the nape of my neck to warm them up.
Oh, right. I was currently on my period. That explained my slightly cramping stomach and my lack of energy for today. The chills I had going through my body probably was from an oncoming cold as well.
I thought it was a bit too late to talk to the school nurse, but I didn't want to explain this to the swordsmanship teacher as well. And I wasn't sick enough to give up on the practical exam. I would probably get better soon.