"Greetings, your Highness the king of Aldon, ruler of the land of the trees!"
"Please stop acting like that, it gives me the creeps..."
Sitting on the wooden throne in the throne room that was not surrounded by walls, the man with the long, silver hair had arrived after sensing the burst of mana I had created.
Just like last time, he stood proud, undaunted by the fact that he would have no choice but to regard me as a benefactor to his kin. And that hurt a bit. Not because I particularly cared what he thought of me, but because I knew I wanted to keep good relations with his kingdom.
Not enough to give him back his throne though. It was quite comfortable, after all.
"Very well. So, what do you think?"
"What do I think about what?"
As his eyes narrowed, he instantly believed that I had some ulterior motive behind my words, and I could feel my heart breaking when he chose suspicion over trust and love. Granted, I did have some, but that still didn't mean I wasn't hurt.
So, leaning my head onto my hand, I decided to go about it all a bit more curtly, as he was seemingly not in the mood for pleasantries.
"What do you think about my gift? Aren't you glad?"
Finally, his gaze softened a bit and I knew that I had broken through the first line of his defense.
"I am. So..."
Bowing his body, acting so very much like the king he was, he uttered the words that would be the first spark of the flame that would be our ever-burning bond.
"... thank you. Even if I still don't trust you, and I don't think I ever will; Thank you for saving my brothers and sisters."
Waving my hand, and although I enjoyed the sensation of seeing him nestling himself into my web, I didn't particularly enjoy seeing a king acting as he did. Because the display he put on made it clear that he was weak. Not weak as in that he wasn't a powerful individual, but weak as in that he was obviously not ready to do what was needed for the future.
If not for me, he would have been stuck in a situation where he would have gotten nothing from Frederick and still lost his brethren. In other words, not accepting the deal would only have led to losses, while he could have chosen to act as a ruler and allowed sacrifices to be made for the greater good.
But this was also the reason why I would allow Aldon to live. Because, unlike a certain king of Mensch, Trelis hadn't completely lost control of his country while lying to himself about what the greater good really meant.
"No need to bow, though I do appreciate your gratefulness. Now, albeit a shame, I don't think either of us has time for a drawn-out conversation so I am regretfully going to have to ask for us to talk about something more important."
Straightening his back, the king of Aldon still held on to a face that didn't show much, making sure I could see his real face just as little as he could what was behind my mask.
"The tear... do you have it?"
"I do."
Opening up the misty storage inside of me, carefully making sure I did not actually touch it with my body, it didn't take long until a certain silvery gem was lying on the ground in front of me. Now, one might think that I should have kept it hidden until he had brought out the branch that I wanted, but I thought differently.
Because this was just yet another sign of my goodwill, showing him that I at least trusted him to the extent that I didn't believe he would steal it and then chase me away. If he did, that just meant that I had judged the ruler of Aldon wrongly, and then I would make deathly sure that he wouldn't get to keep that position for much longer.
"That... that is... is that truly it? The tear..."
Though he had held on strongly, the wall that he had built around him crumbled in an instant when he saw the gem shining on the floor, the gem that would ultimately save his home, and by extension his brethren.
Trembling, he desperately held back the tears that tried to force their way out, still conscious that our interaction wasn't over yet. Putting one leg over the other, I couldn't help the smile that crept up and invaded my face.
"You already know that it is, don't you? So? Do you have it?"
Returning his earlier words back to him, it was time to see what kind of man Trelis truly was, to confirm whether or not my judgment of him had been correct.
"I... I do..."
Opening up a small portal next to his hand, which I could only assume to be a sort of spatial storage from an artifact, he reached into it. A second later, he took his hand out, but he was no longer empty-handed. Because in his hand he was holding the object I wanted.
A wooden branch, the only thing making it different from any other was the golden leaves that adorned it, proving that it contained the power of the ruling goddess herself.
"Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Aldon..."
****
[Sophie's Pov]
It was time for the final part of the midterms, the dungeon dive.
Standing with my group consisting of me, Brad, Trisha and unfortunately Mike, we were getting ready to dive into one of the many artificial dungeons that the academy had at its disposal.
All of us had become sorted into random groups, with the teachers just making sure they were somewhat balanced in terms of combat roles and strength, but I still couldn't help but be a bit frustrated that I got the spoiled, red-haired brat in my party.
Sadly, there was nothing I could do about it, and I also knew that he as well wouldn't purposefully do anything that would put our grades at risk. Because he also had a standard that he had to meet as someone from the Denver house.
"Listen up!"
With Mr. Brown's voice quickly catching our attention, we listened intently to the instructions and goal of our dive.
"The dungeon you will be diving into will be the Snowy Fields, a dungeon bordering between being [E]-rank and [D]-rank. If you did your research about the different dungeons, you should already know to some extent what you can expect in there."
The Snowy Fields was a dungeon that contained a snowy mountain filled with lots of different kinds of monsters with everything between werebunnies that hid their presence in the snow before trying to bite your head off to yetis.
Despite this, the biggest hurdle in this dungeon wasn't actually the monsters, but the climate and the environment. To be able to navigate in snowy terrains while constantly making sure not to get ambushed by monsters in the snow.
It had to be said that even if it sounded easy, as I and my friends had already cleared a [C]-rank dungeon, there was no doubt that they couldn't raise the difficulty based on us. Because then the more normally talented students would undoubtedly get hurt, or worse, die.
And even with that, I knew better than to get careless.
"... and that's all I will tell you. The timer will start as soon as the first person enters the dungeon and remember that if you send an emergency signal you will lose a lot of points on the test."
Taking a look around, checking to make sure all my party members were ready, I took the lead, quickly followed by the large Brad behind me.
*Bzzm!*
After a second of inertia, a sensation caused by my body getting teleported, it didn't take long until I got to see a landscape of pure white. Taking a few steps forward, making sure to scout the vicinity, Brad also came out and followed suit.
With Mike being the last one to arrive, as he was the spellslinger of our group, we were finally ready to start our dive. And unlike in the past when I took command, there was now no one that questioned it.
"Trisha, please go ahead and scout out any packs of monsters you see."
"Sure."
"Mike, please don't use too many big spells during this dive as I want you to keep using your mana to look for any potential monsters hiding under the snow."
"Tch!"
"Brad, you and me will be the vanguard."
"Gotcha!"
After that, we got moving, all of us eager to do our very best, to show everyone just how far we had come. Or at least, I wanted to.
In some weird kind of way, I had put more emphasis on the midterms than I thought I would. Because although I knew they wouldn't matter at all in the future, I also wanted to see just how far I had come in these past one and a half years.