A few days had passed since the incident at the lunch room.
Since then, the students were warned for the actions caused along with what to and not to do when interacting with a member of the dragonkin race. Even though many were not present when Lunaria got rushed by a crowd, everyone already knew what happened from stories spread by eyewitnesses that day. Thus, it came by no surprise to everyone that such a warning was issued. After what had happened, it was only natural to assume something like this would be informed to the students.
While student interaction with Lunaria hadn't decreased, people have started to get more cautious and polite with her as well as respecting her personal space. There were still one or two situations where she was approached a little too closely, but this time she was fully prepared to use magic to fend for herself.
Today, Kaze's class was having their second combined class interaction with Lunaria's class once more, namely physical training class. While the name of the lesson was much longer, it was more commonly known and referred to as Physical Education or Physics.
Physics covered not just the sports and activities that everyone knew, but also involved magical training since there were certain activities that required outdoors practice instead. From year 2 onwards, physical and magical training would be split considering the increase in difficulty in syllabus and therefore magical training would shift to the domain of Magical Perception instead. For now, though, they would be taught under the guidance of 2 teachers since there needed to be more eyes to watch a larger number of people.
"Yo~ We are here boys!" Shoko shouted at Kaze and Yuuji cheerfully, waving her hands frantically to get their attention.
"How are you feeling Lunaria?" Kaze addressed the dragonkin princess as he and Yuuji approached their group.
"Good, how about you two?" Lunaria asked them with a polite smile. "Its good to see you two again."
"It is hard to schedule to eat or meet together for the time being since there could be sudden shifts in schedule, might as well wait for a few weeks for our timetables to be confirmed before we can meet up more often," Yuuji commented after greeting Lunaria and her friends. "I suppose you have been treated rather differently after the incident?"
"Yes, my notice had been taken very seriously by the school admin," Lunaria nodded. "They promised to take immediate action, so I am satisfied to see the results. If not, I wouldn't have done much either but my perception of the school in general would decrease."
"A normal noble would have made a lot of fuss if this happened to them instead, but I suppose they prefer to hog all the glory," Kaze chuckled, picking up his wooden sword.
"Is that some sort of prejudice I sense against the nobles of this country?" Sera asked with a cheeky grin. "I never thought of you to be one to judge Kaze."
"You know I don't mean it that way," Kaze sighed at this. "Yuuji, do you want to help me explain?"
"Basically, Kaze still hadn't made any friends since the first day because our class is filled with nobles," Yuuji scratched the back of his head while explaining. "Even the few commoners in class didn't want to hang out with us because of what happened during Magic Perception a few days back."
"You mean, hang out with me specifically," Kaze shot a look at Yuuji for purposely making his own sentence vague. "And I don't need the pity, thank you very much."
"Well, it just means the students of your class are missing out on someone like you Kaze, don't pay them any attention," Lunaria sighed. "When the time comes, it will come. We still have a full year ahead of us after all. Come, let's start training too."
First lesson of physical training was nothing too complex, consisting of normal sword fighting practice with partners of their own choice. Since everyone had been taught at an early age the basics of sword fighting, it didn't matter how skilled one was as everyone had the opportunity to improve from practising with one another. While it was true that nobles had better opportunities since they could afford better instructors and had more time with training, commoners were also tasked with learning swordsmanship in school. Unless one hadn't trained for their entire life since birth, it was impossible that one didn't learn the basics no matter how weak or strong.
There also existed a variety of sword play, with some similar to each other while others far different and rarer than most. It had never been stated that there was only one way of using the sword, since everyone is unique and had different variations they could come up with. Until then, most people trained renown sword plays that proved to be simple to learn or effective.
This didn't mean that they were lacking in the magical aspect too. If anything, they trained to include magic attacks within their sword play. It was very common to infuse magic with the swing of a sword to create more powerful attacks that would make up for the lacking of any physical strength, especially when one wasn't very good with the sword. However, restrictions were placed on students who were using the school's wooden sword to train so that they wouldn't accidentally release too much magic when training normally and injure their fellow students.
Other than that, there were people who preferred casting strengthening magic on themselves instead of the sword or using other weapons entirely instead of the sword. For example, Shoko was currently wielding a wooden blade instead of a sword and that was fine too. Physical training knew no bounds and the school wouldn't dare to restrict everyone to just using the sword. Unless classes demanded specific requirements of weapon usage, the student body were free to use any weapon available other than lethal ones like arrows or throwable daggers.
"Are you okay with me as your training partner Lunaria?"
Currently, Kaze was preparing to face off against Lunaria. Yuuji had already been occupied with Rena from the start, Sera and Shoko practicing with each other instead. It was almost as if they were trying to pair Kaze with Lunaria, which made it a little awkward for Kaze himself since he wasn't used to being pushed like that.
"It's fine. I will have you know I'm good with the sword too."
Lunaria seemed fine with it, happy even. It was almost as though she was mocking him with the way she held her sword loosely by her side.
Kaze learnt that one should not underestimate a dragonkin or any race that had lived longer than he or any normal human had, since they had the advantage of training longer and learning more over the years. Lunaria was no exception, probably pushed to the extreme with her role as the princess of Aravel. It was hard to tell how good she was with the sword since he hadn't seen her using it before. Kaze was clear that he could never beat her with magic or knowledge after learning of their differences a few days ago, so this was his only shot at being better than her at something.
"Yes, but we are only training," Kaze reminded Lunaria with a wry smile as he raised his sword. "Please go easy on me, princess."
Kaze pushed himself off the floor without missing a beat. Instead of taking it easy like he requested of Lunaria, Kaze decided to test out for himself exactly how good Lunaria was. Running towards Lunaria with his sword by his side, Kaze approached Lunaria in a way that his sword was concealed by his front so she couldn't anticipate the way he held his sword. This was a common tactic used by most but effective because the enemy would have less time to prepare for a counter if they weren't the one making the first move.
There were still a few ways to break through the first move, one of them being the opponent backing off right at the last second to cause a shift in the attacker's momentum so they wouldn't be able to change the direction of their swing in time for the opponent to attack first. This way was only available for people who excelled at sword play already or had good instinct, because a last second reaction triggered by the brain to the body was no ordinary feat.
This time, Lunaria chose another way that specifically relied on her being not a human. As a dragonkin, she was born with higher reaction speed than most humans had, just like other beastkins or races non-human. She took the time for Kaze to reach her within striking range to calculate the number of possible moves that he could make on her before judging at the last second. As such, she could plan her counterattack instead of avoiding his head on charge completely, allowing her to plan further ahead.
After judging from his posture that he was going to swing with his right hand, Lunaria calmly allowed her mind to process his movements before she made her move. Just like Kaze, she didn't know how strong he was from his opening move alone so the proper decision was to judge by the first swing of the sword. In other words, she wanted to challenge his swing with one of her own.
Kaze was a little surprised to see Lunaria running towards him as well, something unexpected for a girl like her. Still, he accepted the challenge and the two swung at each other. Upon collision, their swords broke in half and blew out of their hand from the force exerted alone. The impact was so strong that it made a resounding snapping sound of the wood breaking, causing the other students to halt their training to see what happened. By the time they reacted to the sound, all they could see were Kaze and Lunaria sitting on the floor as though they were pushed back.
"Lunaria!" Sera, the closes of the three to her, ran up to Lunaria. "What happened?"
"Iya~ I never expected to have to use magic to defend myself at the last second," Lunaria giggled as Sera helped her up.
"Huh?? You mean… wait…" Sera seemed baffled and looked down at her hand. "… Where's your sword?"
"It broke, right there," Lunaria pointed at what's left of the hilt on the floor.
"It broke??? You broke your sword fighting Kaze???" Sera asked with a confused look on her face.
"Mm, more like we broke each other's sword," Lunaria pointed out, Sera shifting her gaze to Kaze who was looking shocked too.
The teacher in charge of overseeing the students quickly arrived too. After assessing the situation, it was temporarily judged that the swords they were using were faulty by default since there was no possible way to explain what had happened that caused the swords to snap. The only people who knew what exactly happened were Kaze and Lunaria, the two facing off each other.
Kaze was especially surprised at the way his sword reacted when he struck Lunaria. For a split second, he felt magic leaking from her and strengthening her sword. It wasn't like she cheated, it was more like she expected something to happen and reinforced it to prevent her sword from breaking. Still, that obviously wasn't enough to stop the inevitable.
"Are you alright?" Kaze asked Lunaria as soon as he got to his feet. "I'm sorry, I don't know what happened…"
"It's fine, the teacher already deemed our swords to be faulty so let's continue," Lunaria simply waved it off. "Also, you seem to know very clearly why our swords actually broke, so why are you still asking me that?"
"B-Because… I wanted to get your input too," Kaze widened his eyes at her words. "How did you know I knew what happened?"
"Based on how you reacted," Lunaria pointed out. "When our swords snapped, you twisted your wrist and forcefully pushed the impact away from me. You obviously overpowered me on the first exchange alone and didn't want the debris from the wood to injure me, so you redirected the force."
"… I'm surprised you caught that," Kaze slowly broke into a knowing smile. "But that isn't enough to show that I knew about how the sword would react or whether or not you were stronger than me?"
"I can answer that for you too," Lunaria continued. "You might not be able to see it, but in a fraction of a second, my sword broke first. It was very hard to catch, but I managed to catch sight of the tearing happening on the surface of my sword when I casted the protection magic. Right after that happened, your sword started to tear too so it is your win."
"Your vision sure is something. No one would normally be able to determine that clearly," Kaze sighed. "Well, I am speechless. Here I thought you were being modest to me but you are telling the truth."
"Please, dragonkins are very competitive. Of course we have to be clear about who won or loss," Lunaria soothed him and gave him a new wooden sword. "Round 2, lets go. Try not to put so much strength into your swing this time, we don't want to get the school to charge us for the broken swords."
A few hours after school ended for the day, Kaze went shopping with Lunaria and her friends. He was invited to go along and buy some necessity supplies by Lunaria after lesson ended, in which he accepted. Yuuji couldn't tag along, so Kaze was the only guy of the group.
It wasn't that Kaze didn't dare to reject Lunaria's invitation, it was more of him taking this opportunity to learn more about his only group of friends. Plus, he wasn't very familiar with the city yet so he could make use of them to teach him the things he needed to know. Lunaria was very insistent that he came along, which made it all the more alluring for him. After all, he was already her friend so what other reason was there to reject her?
"Kaze, here," Rena passed him a cup of ice cream. "Lunaria's treat."
"Oh, thank you," Kaze accepted it properly from her. "Aren't we supposed to go shopping?"
"What's the harm in doing a little window shopping while we are at it?" Lunaria asked in a carefree tone. "We don't have to hurry back to the dorms anytime soon after all."
"I can smell something nice from that area," Shoko pointed in another direction. "Want to go check it out?"
Moving from stall to stall, they didn't necessarily buy something from each stall they visited but only look to satisfy their curiosity. Once or twice they couldn't resist the temptation of food or items however, but it really didn't put a dent into their wallets. With proper budgeting, the girls were able to make it out of the shopping area without overspending, although this left Kaze a little tired out already since he had to deal with their excitement.
"Alright, we can move on to the real shopping now," Lunaria giggled at his tired face. "Do you still have the energy to continue or are you too tired from lessons?"
"Maybe a bit of both," Kaze sighed. "What do you girls want to buy?"
"We moved in without bringing much from our home nation since it is a slightly long journey, so we are stocking up on supplies like books and food," Lunaria explained. "I prefer to cook than buy food from the lunch room if that saves me time and the hassle of having to risk my tail getting stared at."
"Lunaria makes amazing food, you should know that from the last time she shared her lunch with you," Sera nudged Kaze lightly.
"It was only sandwiches at the time and it was made while I was rushing, so it really wasn't that good," Lunaria pouted at her friend. "Kaze needs to try something I am absolutely confident in or I can't say it's my cooking."
"See what she means when she said that dragonkins are very insistent?" Shoko asked Kaze, continuing to tease her friend. "It is also why she makes her own lunch since she can't bear possibly eating something overcooked or spoiled, despite the decent quality our school food has."
"I will take that as a compliment, thank you," Lunaria smiled proudly at the remark made. "What about you Kaze? Do you have anything you want to buy?"
"Not really, I was hoping for a tour more so I tagged along," Kaze admitted guiltily. "I figured you girls would know the city better than I do."
"It's fine, I already expected that," Lunaria nodded at his words without minding that he didn't need to splurge. "I should be apologising for bringing you along on our private shopping."
"She really isn't. She is just happy to have you with her," Shoko quickly added, causing the two elves to giggle and Lunaria to pout once more.
"Shoko!!"
By the end of their shopping trip, Lunaria had managed to buy what she needed for her and her friends while also making some time to explore the city together. Since she had her dimension storage, they didn't need to carry any luggage this whole time and it made the trip a lot smoother. Kaze, who had just begun to learn about his female friends, found the entire experience enjoyable. They did their best to make him feel included and not left out since they were all close friends guiding Kaze around together. This was most focused on Lunaria, who stuck close to him most of the time and made sure that he wasn't uncomfortable in any way.
"Thank you for today," Kaze bowed to the four friends as soon as they returned to the front of the girls' dormitory. "I had a great time."
"Likewise. I never thought I would get to meet a human as friendly as you here," Sera smiled politely at his gratitude to them. "It might sound a little harsh, but I am speaking the truth."
"Sera is right. While we know that most of the students in school are great people, it still doesn't change the fact that we like them more than we like you," Rena further clarified Sera's stance. "Especially when we are this much closer to you, so it could probably be that reason too."
"Are you sure you don't want to join us for dinner?" Shoko asked Kaze. "Lunaria's cooking something good today, and a guy can enter the girls' dorms if we permit it with our bracelets."
"Ah, its fine. I couldn't further impose," Kaze shook his head and started to walk away. "See you girls soon."
Just as Kaze started to walk away from the area, he was stopped by Lunaria calling out to him once again. Turning around, he noticed her holding a paper bag in one hand as she jogged towards him.
"Here," Lunaria passed him the bag with a confident smile. "A small parting gift as thanks for today."
"Huh? Shouldn't it be me thanking you girls for allowing me to join you?" Kaze asked with a chuckle.
"No, it should be the other way round since I was the one who extended the invitation to you in the first place," Lunaria explained. "I insist, and also an apology for the sword fight earlier."
"Alright then, I will make it up to you someday," Kaze accepted the bag from her and took a look inside. "Oh, these are some of the things you bought earlier."
"Yeah. I figured it would be good to buy extra for you since you looked like you needed them but couldn't afford to spend," Lunaria smiled. "There is no shame in admitting it Kaze. Not all of us are from good families, like how fortunate I am. If you need help, just ask."
"I-I can't, my grandfather taught me not to rely on others too much especially when you aren't sure you can make an equivalent return to them," Kaze quickly spoke. "I really appreciate your kind gesture Lunaria, but I'm fine for now."
"Really? Someone who skips lunch in school has no rights to say they can afford for themselves," Lunaria stated so, directly crushing his rebuttal.
"… Was that why you bought all the food for me earlier?" Kaze realized this fact now. "Seriously… just how observant are you?"
"Its just a lucky guess," Lunaria winked. "I can tell from the way you walked when we left school you were hungry."
"Then that's a very lucky guess. Don't think that I'm too poor to be able to afford lunch," Kaze puffed his cheeks at her remarks. "I was just saving money for the upcoming week."
"Which means you lack the funds to support yourself for this week," Lunaria grabbed his hand and shoved him some notes. "Take this. I'm not taking no for an answer."
"… Thank you," Kaze weakly replied, feeling guilty that she was looking out so much for him. "How can I…"
"You don't have to repay me. It is Aravel culture to help the less fortunate," Lunaria simply smiled and headed off. "Good night Kaze."
Kaze watched Lunaria's silhouette disappeared before he walked back to his dorm. Arriving at his room, he closed the door behind him and headed to the common bathroom to take a shower before eating his dinner.
Plopping down on bed after a hearty meal of rice and veggies, Kaze began rummaging through the surprisingly large bag that Lunaria had given him.
"Seriously… she didn't have to go so far," he chuckled to himself as he unbagged the contents. "A notebook, some pencils, a water bottle… hm?"
Noticing something sitting at the very bottom, Kaze pulled out the strange fabric that didn't seem to fit what Lunaria had bought this afternoon. He proceeded to unravel the ribbon that tied the fabric together and opened it up.
It was then that Kaze realized he was in a difficult spot, especially when he immediately knew what he was seeing even if he never touched one before.
"… Did Lunaria accidentally… left me with her panties?"