The Chocolate Penalty: A Day of Restraint and Rivalry
Some animation movie existed.
A cute panda bear sat in front of food, training by eating it.
Yes, it was a movie. And the main characters were animals who fought with martial arts.
Of course it was only possible in a movie. No way could an actual baby crawl or eat to perform such amazing training.
“…Lucian.”
“Huh? Yeah?”
“I saw it just now. You blocked my attack. Right at the perfect moment. Even though I didn’t slow down my speed at all.”
Yet it actually happened.
Chocolate Consumption Triggered
Be it Rie or Rie, the most ridiculous thing right now was me.
I didn’t think a mere snack could work as a training tool like “if you can’t block this, you can’t eat it.” It actually succeeded so smoothly.
Do I like it or am I supposed to be disappointed? I can’t even tell anymore.
Rie is actually more excited than I am, bouncing around in delight.
Her face is glowing with the brightest smile, looking like a baby deer that just discovered the joy of the world.
“This is amazing, Lucian! Not even my second-year martial classmates could block it. I poured my whole heart into that swing! You like hot chocolate more than me… keuh! Hmph! Anyway, I never expected you to pull something like this off!”
There was something weird in that sentence, but I’ll gloss over it for now.
What matters right now isn’t whether I prefer hot chocolate or Rie.
It’s whether I blocked her attack at the perfect moment.
“First…”
Yeah, first I’ll drink some hot chocolate and think.
I snatched the hot chocolate I made with my own hands and chugged it down in one go.
The contents had cooled a bit, which was a shame, but it wasn’t ice-cold, so it was still edible.
While I gulped down the hot chocolate, Rie stared at me with an exasperated look.
“Why?”
“Aren’t you happy right now? I just blocked your attack!”
“I know. Of course I’m happy. That’s why I’m replacing the happiness with this hot chocolate.”
“You should be happier! That was an attack that more than half of the second-year classmates couldn’t block!”
“I am happy. I’m just a little disappointed that the hot chocolate got cold.”
At my answer, Rie shook her head in exasperation.
Actually, I can already picture how foolish I look right now.
But the penalty for this ability is “loses it completely when I see chocolate.”
I enjoy sweets, but this body reacts to them in the first place.
If I say that, both Rie and I would be sad. If I had to choose between Rie and chocolate, I’d have to make a massive decision.
“Still, it’s probably better if Rie pulls ahead a little.”
The sweet liquid flowed straight into my stomach, and I started feeling a little better.
At the same time, my head started spinning, and the parts I had missed so far started flashing through my mind.
“Rie. You’re right, this seems to work. But will this really be enough?”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t keep using hot chocolate as a sacrifice forever to block or counterattack. The distance is too far. If I bring the cup closer, I won’t have room to swing the sword.”
“Don’t worry. There’s a way to do that too.”
“A way? What kind of way?”
I blinked in confusion and looked at Rie.
The hot chocolate trick was clever, but how was I supposed to go further with it?
No matter how hard I thought, I couldn’t figure it out.
“Lucian, how many times a day do you visit the café?”
“A few times, not literally. I just go every time I want hot chocolate.”
“…Besides hot chocolate from the café, are there any chocolate-related foods you eat?”
“I always have chocolate in my room and eat one every time I review or preview lectures. Why?”
“From now on, all of it is banned. Everything will be confiscated.”
“What?!”
Is this some kind of joke? Why are all the good chocolates being confiscated?!
“No way! No, it can’t be! Why would you—”
“If you don’t grow even a little during our sword training, you won’t be able to eat. But if I allow it, you can. So…”
“Hey, Rie! Stop messing around. That’s extremely important to me!”
“I’m not kidding. I want to be your girlfriend, not Forbes. I don’t want to be the fiancée of that guy. You said you’d help me crush him, right? You promised you’d make his head hang in shame. So you said you’d bury the engagement talk forever, didn’t you?”
Rie asked back sharply.
That left me speechless.
If I chose chocolate here, I’d basically be giving up all hints related to growth.
That meant I’d be one step closer to losing in the confrontation with Forbes.
Rie probably wanted me to win, and in the middle of her trying to make that idiot stay away from her, if I lost, her position would be incredibly awkward.
If it got out that I beat the academy genius who is supposed to be a sword master, like me, Forbes would naturally climb even higher.
I had no other choice.
It wasn’t even about banning me from eating. If I performed well in training, I could eat as much as I wanted.
It felt like I had become Rie’s pet dog, and I couldn’t shake the gloomy feeling.
But what could I do? My body is that weak, so I have to grow somehow.
“…Fine. I’ll do it your way.”
“You’re serious? No backing out. If you say something else later, I won’t let you.”
“I’m prepared for that. You want me to crush Forbes too, right? I can’t cheat here. Instead, I’ll eat only when I actually achieve results. This isn’t a joke. If chocolate doesn’t even enter my body, I really don’t know what will happen.”
This wasn’t a prank or a joke. This was real.
Once before, for some reason, I couldn’t eat any chocolate-related food.
What happened? I realized the withdrawal symptoms from cigarettes or alcohol I saw in my past life were nothing compared to it.
I became a puddle on the carpet in a single day and just wailed.
But now that I’ve found the clue, I wanted to use it somehow and grow somehow.
How long could I keep living as “just a theoretical genius”?
Isn’t this a good nickname? No, it’s not. Not at all.
It’s a nickname that says “the theoretical genius” while slightly looking down on the real deal.
Still, because I’ve put in effort across so many fields, the positive feeling has grown stronger.
“Okay, Lucian. Let’s start right now.”
“Right now?”
“Yes. You already drank a hot chocolate. You should be able to hold out today. After the magic lecture tomorrow morning, it’s sword training. If you don’t achieve results again tomorrow, you won’t be able to eat.”
“Hey, but just in case, shouldn’t I have a backup plan?”
“There are plenty of chocolates easily available in the academy if you want. I know how many you secretly buy. I’m accounting for that when I say this. But don’t eat too secretly. There are a lot of people I know inside the academy too.”
Is she calling me her living CCTV?
She was even thinking that far ahead. As expected of the academy genius.
After all, she already knew how much chocolate-related food I could devour in a day.
It seemed she thought even cutting it by more than half would still produce results.
“And never get complacent. This was possible because my body pulled out power beyond its limits for a moment. To do it whenever you want, Lucian, you need much more effort. If you just enjoy the results and get lazy, your body will return to its previous state soon.”
“I know. If you get 70 sit-ups today and do nothing, your body returns to normal, right?”
“Please try hard. For you. And…”
Rie suddenly trailed off at the end.
What was she about to say? I looked at her quietly. Rie’s lips trembled, and after a moment she managed to say the next words.
“For me too…”
“…”
“Ah, you know, right?! Not only your honor is on the line, but mine is too! How long have I been with you? If I lose miserably to that senior Forbes, I’ll be in trouble too!”
I knew. So please calm down. While trying to soothe Rie, I also roughly pictured the days ahead.
Today was fine. I drank the hot chocolate and even grabbed some chocolate before that.
The problem was tomorrow. If I didn’t achieve proper results tomorrow, the chocolate ban would be enforced.
I started to feel like I might go mad thinking about how long I could hold out.
“Let’s go.”
“Where to?”
“Where else? Your room. There must be a box full of chocolate, and other emergency supplies hidden around. I have to collect all of them.”
“…”
Feeling like the wife has cleaned out my emergency stash makes me want to complain.
It was one of those days where I felt like complaining about my life.
* * * * * * * * * *
“Well, that’s it for today’s lecture. Tomorrow we’ll review the magic formulas we skipped last time, so please review it, everyone.”
Whether they would actually review or not, the students answered enthusiastically with “Yes!”
Following Egmast, Professor Raven took over the magic lecture for the first-year literary students.
He finished today’s engaging class and began organizing his notes.
Originally, he worked in the Magic Tower’s Inspection Division as a fairly skilled mage there.
The Inspection Division, by nature, picked the most talented first, so someone who had served there was a talented person that the Magic Tower itself would recognize.
Why did Raven choose to become a Minerva Academy professor at a crucial time when he had finished his Inspection Division mission and was deciding on the next department? He learned that the senior he respected most, a mage, was having deep magical discussions with some noble young man.
At first he thought it was absurd.
He knew exactly how skilled his senior was as a mage.
If he could discuss magic with such a man, he should have been announced as a huge genius and even given Magic Tower membership.
But he wasn’t a Magic Tower member, and he wasn’t even known as a magic genius in the public eye.
How was that possible? The moment Raven met that noble young man, he nodded.
He had plenty of knowledge of magic but couldn’t actually use it properly.
That noble young man, whose eyes looked blank as if to say “the sky is fair.”
He was exactly that—Lucian Theodore von Deodore, preparing to leave the lecture hall with a dazed look.
“Hm?”
Thinking about it, Lucian had been a bit strange today.
Although he couldn’t use magic, he always showed enthusiasm in class.
Today he looked like he was about to die, with heavy eyelids.
“Lucian?”
“Ah, yes… Professor Raven.”
“What happened? You didn’t seem to have any enthusiasm in today’s lecture.”
“That’s… I stayed up all night last night. I feel a bit tired…”
“I see. It’s true that enthusiasm for academics can never be enough. But you shouldn’t neglect your body. If there’s no more class, I recommend you return to your room and sleep.”
“Thank you for the advice. But…”
Raven was about to say something when the outside suddenly became noisy and someone appeared.
Flowing golden hair, violet eyes like amethysts, an appearance so beautiful it could be called an angel, and already the word “academy’s future top student” was heard—Rie Arche von Haniel.
“I’ll take my leave, Professor.”
“Oh, yes.”
The moment Rie left the lecture hall, Lucian was dragged away somewhere.
Looking at his retreating back, Raven burst into laughter.
“As expected, youth is the best. I should have tried love back when I was that age. Ah, just a little. No, I’m really envious.”
While thinking that, he clicked his tongue.
However, Professor Raven had no idea that the expression on Lucian’s face right now was nothing like that of a man in love.