The Childhood Friend Became a Man
Even if it was a new kind of magic… well.
I had only ever learned holy reinforcement magic—buffs, really.
I had no intention of teaching buffs to Laward.
Everyone had magic that suited them. That was simply how it worked.
So the only things I could pass on to him were the basics, just like last time.
Whether you were a holy knight specialized in long range like me, or one who covered both close and mid range like Chris—before choosing the magic that truly fit you, every holy knight had to pass through the same fundamentals.
The rank was still F, of course.
But with Laward’s divine power stats now at their absolute peak, I believed even F-rank magic could become something extraordinary in his hands.
I was certain of it.
Swish—
Eight in the morning.
Veronica slid her arms into the sleeves of her school uniform shirt.
It’s been a whole year since I last wore this…
She fastened the buttons one by one, lost in thought.
Did it get a little smaller?
After doing up the buttons on her skirt as well, she stepped out the door.
Knock, knock—
The first place she visited upon arriving at the Academy was the faculty office.
“What an awkward time for this.”
The third-year magic department teacher looked Veronica up and down.
“There’s about four months left until graduation.”
He skipped any greetings or questions about how she’d been after so long and cut straight to the point.
“Think you can stay out of trouble until then?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Your goal is still Magic University, right?”
“Yes.”
The teacher made a thoughtful hum as he flipped through Veronica’s student record.
“First- and second-year grades look solid. From third year on, though…”
His finger traced downward.
“They completely tanked. What happened then?”
“It was right after I contracted with the spirit. I wasn’t in my right mind. It kept talking to me nonstop…”
“Talking to you?”
“Its personality is… a little unique.”
Veronica tapped her temple with a fingertip, as if to say the spirit was still in there.
“You’ll need to reset your goals. The schools you hoped for before will be difficult. Never mind the third-year grades—you also…”
“Yes. I have a disciplinary record.”
“Glad you know. So, have you looked into anything?”
“I’m thinking of applying lower, actually. Somewhere I can get a scholarship.”
“Hmm…”
The teacher seemed to scroll through a mental list of magic universities for a moment.
“Distance from home doesn’t matter?”
“No.”
“Even if it means going all the way to the North?”
“The North?”
“Yeah, up north. They’d take you there. They won’t care about the discipline record. If anything, they prefer mages who aren’t ordinary…”
“Ah, that’s where the boss graduated, I think.”
“Boss?”
“It’s… nothing. Do you really think I could get in? I heard it’s pretty prestigious.”
“Submitting an application is worth a shot. More than anything, you use a spirit.”
The teacher leaned back in his chair.
“They’ll look on that favorably. Just the fact that you’ve contracted with a spirit is an enormous blessing.”
“A blessing… right.”
“Anyway, that should cover career counseling. Head to class first.”
“Yes.”
“You really won’t cause any trouble?”
Hearing him say the same thing twice made Veronica want to cause trouble just out of spite, but she was back after a full year. She decided to hold it in.
“Yes. I promise.”
Veronica stepped out of the faculty office.
The view through the hallway windows hadn’t changed enough to give her chills—it was exactly the same.
Students streaming in through the main gate.
Campus trees swaying in the wind.
Laundry hanging from the dormitory balconies.
Four months, huh…
In four months she would never see this scenery again.
Thinking of it that way made everything feel strangely precious.
And only now did she understand just how precious that lost year of absence had been.
Rattle—thud!
The moment she slid open the distinctive classroom door and stepped inside, every student turned to look at her at once.
Ah… students are supposed to use the back door, aren’t they…
Realizing she had walked straight in through the front, Veronica surveyed the room.
Naturally, her eyes met those of the students already seated.
Instead of greeting her, they leaned toward their neighbors and started whispering.
Veronica forced a blank expression and headed for her seat—
Wait. I don’t even have a seat.
The students who had shared this classroom with her last year had already graduated and either gone on to higher education or entered society.
She was now the same year as last year’s underclassmen. Of course there was no seat waiting for her.
I should’ve asked at the faculty office.
She let out a long sigh.
At this point she had no choice but to ask one of the students here.
Veronica bowed slightly toward the first girl who happened to catch her eye.
“Excuse me.”
“Eek!”
The girl shot to her feet the instant she heard Veronica’s voice and scrambled backward.
“Um, is there an empty seat…?”
“H-here! Please take this one! It’s yours!”
“Uh…”
When Veronica looked down, she saw the chair the girl had abandoned—a seat wrapped in a fluffy pink cushion.
“No, that’s not what I—”
As Veronica scratched her head in confusion, the girl threw both arms up in a defensive posture.
“Hyaah!”
“……”
“I’ll give it to you! Just please don’t hit me!”
“H-hit you? Why would I—”
While this was happening, Veronica glanced around.
Even more students had gathered around her than before.
The whispering grew louder, swirling inside her ears.
…Maybe I really should’ve just dropped out.
The thought surfaced, and Veronica immediately shook her head.
No. I decided to repay that trust…
She steadied herself and was about to speak to the girl again when—
“This is the Sword Department classroom, senior.”
A languid, even voice cut cleanly through the whispers.
A girl was lying at an angle across a desk with a pillow laid out in plain sight.
Not just a pillow—she had a blanket draped over her knees and shoulders as well.
The beautiful girl who looked fully prepared for sleep stared straight at Veronica through heavy-lidded eyes ringed with dark circles.
It was the first time today anyone had properly met her gaze.
“Ah… right.”
Veronica checked the sign above the classroom door again.
“They moved the classrooms around for various reasons. Oh, and the infirmary moved too. If you need to rest that day, you’ll have to go up to the third floor… maybe I shouldn’t have told you that. It would’ve been fun to watch. Haaah…”
“Thanks, Lucia.”
“Hm? How do you know me?”
“Of course I know. When I was a second-year, you enrolled as the top student. You look a lot… different from back then, though.”
“Is that so… An honor to be recognized by the Academy’s biggest celebrity.”
“Celebrity?”
“Yes. You’re famous for assaulting a teacher.”
“…What?”
“Was that not it?”
“Of course not!”
“You’re famous for assaulting a teacher and getting a school violence committee convened. I heard the teacher’s sixty-year-old parents filed a report claiming their kid got beaten by you.”
“What kind of rumor is that? It sounds like someone’s fever dream.”
“No, that really was the rumor. I do dream a lot, though, that’s true.”
“Haa…”
Veronica shook her head.
So that’s why everyone’s staring even harder…
“Anyway, thanks for telling me.”
“Sure. Let’s hang in there together, fellow almost-graduates.”
“Come to think of it, you’re a third-year already. Time flew.”
“I know, right. Wonder where that top-rank entrant went.”
“I see someone about to get swallowed by a blanket, though.”
“Ah.”
“Hm?”
“Are you thinking of entering the Dowon Festival, by any chance?”
“The Dowon Festival?”
Veronica recalled the letter she had received from Daywin not long ago.
He had asked her to participate, so of course she planned to apply.
“Yeah, I am.”
“Great! Then maybe you could… instead of me… instead… hmm…”
Lucia trailed off mid-sentence and simply fell asleep.
Apparently she had used up her entire dialogue quota for the day.
“What the…”
Veronica let out a short laugh, ruffled the sleeping Lucia’s hair a few times, and stepped back out into the hallway.
Before hunting down the magic department classroom, she returned to the faculty office.
“Veronica? Why are you back…?”
“Participants for the Dowon Festival are selected at the Academy’s sports festival, right?”
“Huh?”
“Please put me on the list. For the sparring event.”
“You want to enter the Dowon Festival?”
“Yes.”
“Well… alright. I’m in charge of that, coincidentally. Not that the head teacher is supposed to handle this kind of thing… why am I even a third-year homeroom teacher at my age…”
“Pardon?”
“Never mind. Ignore that. You know the third-years are all fierce, right? You’ll need to place in the top four at the sports festival.”
The teacher opened a drawer and pulled out the application forms.
In that moment, Veronica spotted a name that leaped out at her from the stack of papers inside.
Sports Festival Sparring Event Applicants.
First-year.
Laward.
No family name.
Just Laward.
Her childhood friend.
“Why is he… here…?”
“Hm?”
“Nothing. I must have misread it.”
“You peeked into my drawer without permission and then claim you misread something?”
The teacher, quick on the uptake, pulled out the document Veronica had been eyeing.
“You know Laward?”
“Huh? Ah… I don’t know if I’d say I know him… I’m not even sure it’s the same person I know.”
“Even if you don’t, you’d better remember the name. Laward is the Academy’s top freshman.”
“Him…? Why on earth…?”
“Good morning, Karma-niiim.”
“You sure know how to say that at lunchtime.”
I sat down on the park bench next to Lucia, who was chewing on a piece of bread.
She kept her eyes closed against the glare as she ate with surprising focus.
“Karma-nim, I’ve got good news and… ambiguous news. Ah, I’ll just start with the good news.”
“If you’re going to do that, why even ask…”
Even if I wasn’t the protagonist of some dating sim, she hadn’t given me a single choice.
She hadn’t even left me room to ask what “ambiguous news” was supposed to mean when it wasn’t even bad news.
“We finally found a maid. Ta-da.”
Lucia made a V-sign with the hand that wasn’t holding bread.
It was the most half-hearted V-sign I had ever seen.
“She’ll start at Houndry tomorrow. That’s fine, right?”
“More than fine. Whether Houndry will be fine for her is another question, but it’s something to celebrate. What’s she like?”
“Ah, I don’t know either.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t even interview her…”
“An application came in, so I just told her to show up for work right away. Before she could run.”
“What were you thinking? This is someone who’ll be looking after the kids. You should’ve been careful.”
“It’s fine. If she’s a bad person, she’ll just have to run away for real. From me.”
She took another bite of bread as she spoke.
“And the ambiguous news is… ah.”
Lucia’s eyes suddenly lit up, and I found myself turning my head in the direction she was staring.
Where her gaze was fixed, Laward stood—and Veronica was walking straight toward him.
“Laward?”
Veronica approached him with a face that said she couldn’t believe her eyes.
“Laward, right?”
“Huh?”
“It is you! Laward, it’s me! Veronica!”
Her steps quickened as she closed the distance.
“It’s me, I said! We used to play together all the time when we were little! Pickpocketing, stealing, getting the crap beaten out of us together!”
That was how you two played…?
At least they got what was coming to them, but by no stretch of the imagination was this a normal set of childhood-friend memories.
“Veronica? Is it really you…”
“Yeah! Whoa—you’ve gotten so tall. You used to be shorter than me. Wow…”
Wow.
Pure cliché lines, every last one of them.
Dialogue so perfectly childhood-friend-coded it was almost painful.
I stared blankly at Veronica’s bright, open smile.
I had never seen her look that shy before.
“Your back’s so much broader too, and your hands—wow, you’re completely… a man now. I mean… haha, of course you are…”
What the hell. Why is she glitching out.
This feels weird…
Seeing a side of Veronica so completely different from the one I knew made me feel like I’d just run into my little sister after she finished getting ready to go out.
“Why aren’t you saying anything—! Aren’t you happy to see me?”
“No, I’m just so surprised… I heard you’d moved away, but I never thought you’d be at the Academy… Wait, why haven’t I seen you until now?”
“Ah, that is…”
“Anyway, it’s really good to see you again. When you suddenly disappeared, I…”
“What, what? Did you miss me or something?”
“Well… maybe I did, back then… but that was a long time ago…”
“I was just teasing… heh. I’m ridiculously happy to see you too!”
Veronica laughed playfully and threw her arms wide to hug Laward—
Thwack.
Laward irritably slapped her arms away.
“Veronica. Even if we are childhood friends, don’t cross the line.”
“U-uh…?”
There it is.
That familiar flavor.
Leaving Veronica frozen solid on the spot, Laward simply walked past her.
I had nearly lost the identity of my own story lately, but this was a scene worth watching after a long dry spell.
I felt like I could finally understand a little of what those perverts felt while observing Ester’s defeats.
“Whew. My mood’s improved. Lucia, so what was the ambiguous news?”
“Ah, that. It just turned into good news.”
“Hm?”
“A senior I wasn’t sure was a good person or a bad person came back to school. But it turns out she’s just an interesting senior, so I don’t really care anymore.”
Chomp.
Lucia finished off the rest of her bread.