Additional Lectures
"Ow, come on! Nia!!"
Smack!
"Ugh?!"
"What is wrong with you, jumping straight to a duel with someone you've never even met!!"
Call it a stroke of luck — Nia's sudden challenge had been intercepted by Lumia, who came barreling in out of nowhere.
"Sorry, Lucian. Our girl here's a bit lacking in the social skills department."
"No, it's... it's fine, but what were you two doing here at this hour?"
I asked. It was pushing nine o'clock, and with it being the first day, I'd assumed there wouldn't be a single cadet left in the training hall.
"Yeah, nothing much — Nia just asked for a rematch."
"...At this hour?"
"Yep! I guess she was pretty sore about losing to me so many times!"
"...Lumia."
"Haha."
From the look of it, the two had already gotten pretty close.
Nia's the type who usually has a hard time letting anyone get close to her, though...
Apparently that bulldozer of a personality had done some of the work for her.
"Anyway, this is our first time properly meeting, right? Nice to meet you, Mr. Top Rank. I'm Lumia Catarina!"
"...Nia Mist."
"Right, nice to meet you. And as you know, this is Lucian Peyote."
"Hmm. So the rumors really aren't something you can take at face value, huh?"
"Rumors?"
What on earth was that supposed to mean?
Seeing my puzzled expression, Lumia grinned slyly and went on.
"Well, you see — word around the Academy is that the top-ranked freshman is super cold, sharp-tongued, and terrifying. But seeing you in person, you don't really seem like that at all?"
"...Haah, how far has that story spread? That rumor."
"Beats me. Probably your own karma catching up with you? I mean, you did knock a fellow classmate out cold on day one."
Lumia shrugged.
I protested, the injustice plain in my voice.
"That was an accident."
"Aha, is that so?"
Lumia smirked.
"It's the truth. Someone made their introduction a little too flashy, and I figured — hey, I'm the top rank, maybe I should show off something too — and then I messed up."
"Aha. You hear that, Nia?"
"...Hmph."
Having stayed silent only to get caught in the crossfire, Nia gave a small shrug of her shoulders.
"...So, the duel."
Apparently out of things to say, Nia quickly changed the subject. So I asked her — honestly, I was a little curious.
"I could spar with you later if you want, but why do you want to duel me so badly?"
"...Because you're the top rank?"
"The top rank is just the top rank. You saw my match earlier — sparring with me won't do you much good."
She'd just end up getting cooked like dinner, plain and simple.
"Why?"
"Huh? What do you mean, why? You watched the match, so you should already know—"
Wait. Hold on.
Did she see it?
The thought occurred to me as I kept wondering why she kept asking — something felt off about it.
Sure enough, Lumia cheerfully cut in with the explanation.
"Nia was off getting her arm treated, so she missed your duel! That's probably why."
"...Ah."
Seria and I had indeed gone last, but Nia and Lumia had also dueled fairly late in the rotation.
So barely after the two of them finished, our turn came around, and since Nia's treatment ran long, she'd apparently missed our match entirely.
"I saw it though, heehee. You should've seen how bummed Nia was when I told her it was all over."
"...Shut up."
So that's what it was?
Listening to the two of them banter, I thought it over.
That certainly went a long way toward explaining why Nia was so desperate to spar with me.
After a brief moment of consideration, I spoke.
"Alright. I'll duel you."
"...Really?"
The words were barely out of my mouth before Nia turned to me, eyes gone wide and round.
Something about the sight made a smile tug at my lips despite myself as I answered.
"Yeah. But — I will, just not right now."
"...Why?"
Instantly, a disappointed look spread across Nia's face.
Viewed up close like this, her expressions were an absolute gold mine. I studied her face with interest as I explained.
"I tried using my ability in a pretty unusual way today, and the mana drain was worse than I expected. I burned through almost all of it against Seria earlier."
It wasn't normally the kind of thing that demanded this much mana, but completely sealing off someone's senses took several times the usual cost.
If I'd only used standard illusions, my mana would've fully recovered by now — but I'd spent the whole fight blocking and maintaining every sense at once as an experiment, so my reserves were still running low.
Besides, Nia had been sparring with Lumia nonstop herself, so her mana had to be depleted too.
Her ability was every bit as demanding, performance-wise — Stealth ate through mana just as greedily.
"Wouldn't it be better for both of us to fight at full strength?"
"...Okay."
Approaching it from that angle seemed to do the trick — Nia nodded, though the disappointment didn't quite leave her face.
"Good call, Nia! You're all worn out from fighting me anyway, right?"
The moment Nia nodded, Lumia swooped in and wrapped her in a bear hug.
Nia's head snapped back at the impact, and with the height difference between them, her face ended up buried square in Lumia's chest.
"...Get off."
"Heehee. Nope."
Suffocating, Nia thrashed and flailed, but with their strength roughly even, there was no easy escape.
What a fine spectacle this is.
Embarrassing to watch from the outside, admittedly.
I nodded along and savored the view for a good long while, until a thought finally surfaced — and with a pang of reluctance, I called out to Nia.
"Oh, Nia."
"Mmph... ...What."
"You're an assassin, aren't you?"
"...I am."
"Then you know how to conceal your presence, right?"
Instructor Bronson had told me to learn how to mask my presence, after all.
I'd be learning it from him soon enough, but getting a head start couldn't hurt.
"...I do."
At her meek little nod, I flashed her a wide grin.
"Nia, I've got a favor to ask you."
Friday arrived before I knew it.
"Right, that's it for today's class... And you there — I wasn't finished talking, so sit back down."
"Sorry, sir!"
Having held class in the lecture hall for the first time in a while, Bronson gathered the cadets' attention and made his announcement.
"It's been nearly a week since you all enrolled."
Technically it hadn't been a full week yet, but with this being the last class of the first week, the statement wasn't wrong.
Ah. It's almost that time.
The thought came to me as I listened to his greeting.
Bronson, who never normally kept the cadets after class, was dragging things out — and the timing fit perfectly, so the memory clicked into place.
Elective course registration.
"As I'm sure you all know, the Academy runs a number of additional lectures on top of each department's regular curriculum."
Sure enough, what came out of Bronson's mouth was exactly what I'd anticipated.
"As they have up until now, instructors will occasionally visit your regular classes to coach you, but there are limits to what we can cover that way."
"The additional lectures cover everything from spear technique, shield work, dagger and short-sword combat, and hand-to-hand fighting, to court etiquette and mana stone harvesting — a wide range of subjects. Choose whichever ones you each need and enroll."
Just as he said, the official name was "additional lectures," but among the players, they'd simply been called "electives" for convenience.
Since the lectures you enrolled in steadily boosted your skill levels and stats, choosing the right electives was absolutely critical to building a character efficiently.
In the game, the optimal play was to cram in every single lecture you could possibly take...
But I can't do that here.
Experience didn't come in automatically — I'd have to personally grind through every single class.
Thanks to my high school days of suffering, I could technically endure it, but my quality of life would take a nosedive, no question.
And it wasn't like these were sit-down study sessions either — most of the lectures were physical training on top of everything else.
Even with high physical stats, the workload was just as brutal in its own way.
I'll take exactly what I need, and nothing more.
"I'll be handing out the course catalog and application forms now. Think it over carefully over the weekend and submit them to me on Monday."
Rustle rustle!
Bronson distributed the papers with brisk efficiency and ended the class.
Normally the cadets would have stampeded out the door alongside him, but today they all stayed seated, murmuring amongst themselves.
Naturally, the topic of conversation was the electives.
"Hey, what are you signing up for?"
"'Advanced Swift Swordsmanship,' 'Heavy Swordsmanship'... Huh, the swordsmanship lectures come in a bunch of different tracks."
"'Court Etiquette'? Why would they even make a lecture for that?"
That etiquette one is secretly really important, though...
It looked like the most useless lecture on the list, but for a commoner run, taking "Court Etiquette" made building favorability with the noble cadets dramatically easier.
Even in the game, being friendly with the nobles came with a pile of perks — in real life, that went double.
One look at how much I freeloaded off Seria was proof enough of that.
"Court etiquette... Yeah, I suppose that is something I could stand to learn."
"Living alongside commoners, there have been moments that made me wince. This should help smooth things over."
Of course, if you started as a noble, you didn't need to take it at all.
But on a commoner run, it was practically mandatory.
Back when I posted walkthroughs on the café, I always told people to take Court Etiquette, no questions asked, no arguments accepted.
"Why would anyone take etiquette? You can get by fine without that stuff."
"Right? Total waste of time, isn't it?"
But the real-life commoners, apparently unaware of just how valuable it was, mostly dismissed the etiquette lecture outright.
Such fools, the lot of them...
Unable to suppress my despair, I quietly checked the box for Court Etiquette on my application form.
"Hmm? Lucian, you've already decided—? Oh. The etiquette lecture, I see."
Seria, sitting beside me, remarked after glancing at my form.
"Yeah. I know some of it, but not all of it. Figured I'd take the chance to learn it properly."
Judging by the room, there wouldn't be many cadets signing up — but I couldn't afford to skip it.
Otherwise I'd be forfeiting the "well-mannered commoner" bonus stamp.
"Good thinking. ...Should I take it with you? I could help you out along the way."
Excuse me, what?
"No — don't."
Politely declining Seria's offer, I went on.
"You already know everything there is to know. You should take a different lecture. There's no point wasting your time on my account."
"...I wouldn't mind."
"Nope. Not happening."
"...Fine."
Though clearly disappointed, Seria ultimately relented.
Watching her, I clicked my tongue softly to myself.
What is with her lately?
When we first met, she'd given off such a sharp, no-nonsense image — so why did I keep seeing this softer side of her these days?
It felt like the moment she had anything to do, she came straight to me...
Maybe it's time to put a little distance between us.
Don't get me wrong — I enjoyed her company. But Seria was the problem.
If she kept spending her time on me, her connections and her training would both fall by the wayside, and that wouldn't do at all.
...Yeah. Let's do that.
Since we'd be splitting up for the electives anyway, the distance would come naturally.
Once Seria got close with the other cadets, I'd close the gap again.
Swallowing the bitter taste on her behalf, I quietly made up my mind.