The Most Dangerous Thing

I let out a long, drawn-out stretch and a silent scream. No matter how much they say a student's duty is to study, studying was just as miserably boring in this life as it had been in my previous one.

With a dazed, sluggish gaze fixed out the window, I found myself thinking without realizing it. Ah, it'd be nice to swing a sword properly and sweat it all out.

Having reached the pinnacle of being a sword... no, a gym... fanatic, I had now arrived at the stage where I instinctively thought about swinging a sword whenever my mind wandered. I wasn't sure about actual gym rats, but maybe they thought about working out when they had nothing else on their minds? A strange sense of kinship welled up inside me.

The black thing is the chalkboard, and the white stuff is writing. As I rested my chin on my hand, watching the professor's back while he sweated over the board, meticulously writing down the lesson content, that thought suddenly crossed my mind.

……Shouldn't good things be shared?

Just as training with the sword, sweating, and seeing my skills improve felt undeniably rewarding, it was something that should be shared with others. Seeing how none of them trained that hard, it was clear they hadn't yet discovered this joy!! What a truly lamentable situation.

The way my muscles ached and felt stiff the morning after a grueling training session from the day before...! The way my muscles bulged with every downward swing of the sword!! I had to let everyone know about this.

'……Let's calm down.'

I steadied my mind. Spreading it to just anyone, in any way, would clearly not work. Besides, that would just make me look like a cult leader, wouldn't it?

First, I needed to recruit people close to me. People who used swords as their main weapon, or had some interest in it, and were close to me.

I slowly turned my head and looked at the girl with blue hair.

"……Why?"

Helena, the diligent model student who had been focusing on the professor's lecture, asked with slightly flushed cheeks as she noticed my gaze.

Good. I've decided on you.

@

Helena tried hard to calm her fluttering heart as she began picking out clothes.

'Since he said training, I should wear workout clothes, right?'

But she didn't want to wear anything plain or weird. The training uniforms provided by the academy were the same. They were just too... familiar. Even though it had only been a little over two weeks, she wore the training uniform almost as often as her school uniform. This wouldn't do.

'I need to show him a different side of me…….'

Having once heard somewhere that men get excited when they see a new charm in the opposite sex, Helena chose her clothes with extreme care.

Despite all that agonizing, the truth was that the clothes Helena could wear were quite limited. Because she had never been very interested in fashion.

"……Sigh."

Looking at her pitifully sparse wardrobe, Helena let out a deep breath and picked out the most decent outfit she had, then checked the time.

"I'm late……!"

Helena hurriedly changed and rushed out of her room in a fluster. She'd gotten too excited and wasted too much time. It wasn't a date... but still, there was nothing more disappointing than breaking a time promise.

Helena ran quickly down the hallway toward the training grounds.

"Hey… you can't run in the hallway……!"

The dorm supervisor's scolding rang out, but Helena had already dashed past in an instant.

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'I'm sorry…!'

Leaving behind a silent apology, Helena headed for the training ground and spotted him right in the center.

It looked like he'd arrived long before her. As she watched Felice swinging his sword straight down, completely lost in his own world, Helena couldn't help but stop in her tracks.

After all, it was only natural for a man focused on his own work to look cool. And of course, it was natural for a handsome man to look cool. But what about a handsome man completely absorbed in his work? Especially if that man was someone she liked.

Helena unconsciously pressed her cold hands against her burning cheeks and stared blankly at Felice.

So cool.

If it had been anyone else, she wouldn't have felt this way. Knowing full well that this was only possible because it was Felice, Helena tried to calm her racing heart as she stepped into the training ground.

Part of her wanted to just stand there and keep watching him, but the promised time was almost up. At the same time, she felt a surge of anticipation at how happy she would be spending time with him inside.

"Felice…!"

The moment Helena's voice reached him, Felice's concentration broke. But he didn't seem to mind at all. He turned to look at her and smiled.

Seeing Felice looking somehow happy, Helena felt her chest swell with emotion and smiled back at him.

"You're here?"

She wasn't imagining it—Felice's voice sounded especially gentle today. Hiding the way her heart fluttered at his every smile and every word, Helena nodded shyly.

Felice looked at her and slowly raised his hand.

What could it be? Was he going to pat her head? Or hold her shoulder? Why was he doing this here, of all places... Wait, how should I react?

Her heart swelled at his every action, every smile, every word. Feeling that happiness filling her chest, Helena raised her hand too—only for Felice to place something in it.

"Huh……?"

It was a training longsword.

Helena stared blankly back and forth between the sword and Felice's face. When she saw the smile on his face, she unconsciously swallowed hard.

"Glad you made it."

Felice's face seemed to say exactly that.

Training…… we're really doing this, huh?

@