Meeting the Squirrel (2)
I dropped by the convenience store on my way back, then stopped at the empty lot behind Thunder Hall.
“U-wooa. It’s a sandwich.”
“...Huh? I’ve never seen one before.”
“I-I’ve always eaten ones with mold growing on them... Ah! I’m sorry!”
“What? We eat them all the time. That one.”
“...Us?”
Why drag me here just to bully me and force-feed me lunch? I don’t feel like making enemies.
Apparently she’s from a noble family, though. A noble would think twice before messing with someone at the 5th Realm or higher.
She’s even at 9th Realm? So maybe she just looks like a random extra. But from 8th Realm onward, people stop treating her like a normal human.
They’re just monsters whose common sense doesn’t work anymore.
Of course, I don’t know if she knows I’m only at 5th Realm—that’s a problem for later.
Anyway.
I held out the squirrel in my hand to her.
“Hello, little squirrel.”
“Hello. My name is Cecil. I study how to turn people into nuts.”
“...Eh? Ah, right.”
And silence.
The unknown girl just eyed me nervously, nibbling her sandwich like she had no intention of talking.
What now?
Yeah.
Remember when I finally made friends with someone?
Back when I was about eight.
I remember being friends with a kid from the same clan.
Ah, right. I smeared gold paint on his face just to steal his lunch.
Wrong.
Then around eleven.
With Luke... wrong.
With Ode... wrong.
With Eri... put on hold.
‘My human relations are really limited.’
Somehow there’s always a shady motive or a bad way I end up connecting with people.
...Ah.
Isn’t there?
A squirrel who became friends with me without any bad intention.
‘Please take me with you!!’
‘Ugh, I’m gonna puke...’
‘Hehe. I don’t have any money~’
“Tsk.”
“?”
Wrong.
All the experience I’ve gained so far is garbage.
What kind of life has that guy even lived...!
I had no choice.
I had to go straight for the direct approach.
“Ahem, so what’s your name?”
“Um... Bail. My name is Bail. I don’t have a last name.”
“Okay. Bail. Nice name.”
The direct approach means building rapport!
I only know a little about her, but here’s one fact:
‘Hah. Every time I see orphan kids like you, I get jealous.’
That’s what she said.
From there I got a clue.
One of the three must be someone who can learn something new. That had to be her.
“...Me? I don’t know what you’re thinking, but that seems like a really bad idea...”
“You’re an orphan too? We’re orphans too.”
“..................Eh?”
“Ah.”
At my words, Bail froze, and the squirrel’s eyes went distant.
Wait, what?
Cecil said she liked this, but now...
***
Now that I think about it, even among orphans there are wild orphans and friendly orphans.
Me and Cecil are the wild type. We treat being orphans as a joke, act like it’s no big deal, and look totally normal on the surface.
And Bail is the friendly type. The fact that she’s an orphan is a huge complex and weakness for her.
Oh no! I turned out to be the weakness-spotting talent too. Dammit!
“Ugh, snivel. H-how could you say something so mean... Uuuuu...”
“......”
Cecil quietly backed away from me.
No way. I had no idea.
I never thought she’d be carrying such fragile feelings until she turned seventeen.
Zap!
“Um.”
“Snivel, ugh...”
“Don’t get hurt too much, Bail. That guy is so insensitive to other people’s feelings. It wasn’t with bad intentions. Okay? Let’s drop it?”
“Ugh. Ugh...”
We just met today.
‘Hey.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t you have any personal skills? Comfort her.’
‘Personal skills? The squirrel would probably enjoy this more.’
‘Sigh.’
Um.
Tsk. I guess I have to do something.
“Hey, Bail?”
“Snivel, ugh...”
“Are you in the Magic Engineering department?”
“...Y-yes. How did you know?”
“No. Your shoes have a lot of scuffs, but there’s quite a bit of mud caked on them. You must’ve worn them for a long time, but you didn’t rough up the ground much.”
“......”
Once I started talking, she shut up tight and stared like a kid.
When comforting kids... yeah.
I gently grabbed her hand and opened my mouth.
“Your hands are soft.”
“Eh?!”
“Anyone who grips a weapon has rough hands. I’ve been practicing a bit for self-defense too.”
“T-that’s right.”
“Then let’s rule out the body-using departments. Magic or crafting. Magic and Engineering freshmen have the same class schedule, so it wasn’t in the Magic and Engineering department. Everyone attended, so that’s out too. What’s left is crafting alchemy or blacksmithing, or magic. Blacksmiths get calluses on their hands from hammering, and alchemy gives off a strong smell from strong herbs. So the only department left is Magic. Practical Magic, Elemental Magic, Formation Magic, or Pure Magic. We can narrow it down to Practical or Elemental since Formation is expensive and Pure isn’t.”
“...That’s right. It’s the Practical Magic department. Even if it’s not expensive...”
“How about it? Impressive?”
“...Y-yes.”
“Now it’s not an orphan anymore?”
“...!”
At my words, she looked surprised and awkwardly tugged at her lips.
If you laugh while crying, you get a horn on your butt.
Was it a tail?
“Earlier, I’m sorry. I said that half-jokingly. I’ll be careful from now on.”
“From now on?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“‘From now on’.... Hehe. Yeah. Nice to meet you. I’m Bail from the Practical Magic department.”
“I’m Jeden from the Magic and Engineering department.”
“I’m Cecil from the same department.”
“Then I’ll head to my next class first. Take care, squirrel guy, Jeden.”
“Yeah.”
“...Yeah. Almond.”
“Where did that almond come from?”
“Shut up, nut.”
***
After sending Bail off, we finally had some free time.
Two o’clock, so about two hours left.
“Let’s go sightseeing. No more lectures like this morning.”
“Grrk.”
The two hours that felt endless suddenly felt short.
At four, there was a general magic one class at Flame Hall, so we’d wrap it up there and head back.
“Welcome to the Windfall Falls, Earth Flame Tour. We’ll guide you in the order of windfall falls, earth, flame.”
“Oh. A tour guide?”
“I learned it as a kid. It’s a rural estate, so I never got to use it.”
We didn’t have time to look at Thunder Hall since we already visited, and it’s a boring building anyway.
We, or rather I, immediately walked toward the Windfall Hall.
The squirrel on my shoulder came along naturally.
Windfall Hall.
“This hall isn’t that special either. Better than Thunder Hall, but still.”
“Really? Looks fine to me. Compared to where I lived.”
“Your eyes are too low.”
Falls Hall.
“Ooh! Look! A waterfall! Why is the lecture building shaped like a D? There’s a waterfall at the entrance!”
“You call the falling water a waterfall?”
“?”
“?”
“A waterfall is when river water falls down from a certain point.”
“Then doesn’t the water dry up? The water at the bottom of the falls overflows. Well, in the academy they probably pull the fallen water back up.”
“...I don’t know. Moving on.”
Earth Hall.
“Oh. Like a botanical garden?”
“Ugh, it’s humid. Boring.”
“Really? I’m fine with it. It feels a little different for a squirrel?”
“Since you’re a nut, you’re happy to see plants. Good thing I don’t have to come here this semester.”
“Seems like a building alchemy students often visit.”
“That’s nice.”
Ground Hall.
“It’s square.”
“Yeah, square.”
“It’s ugly in a completely different way from Thunder Hall.”
“I agree. It’s too... rigid.”
“Buildings are rigid by nature.”
And then, Flame Hall.
“...This must be the lecture building?”
“...Probably?”
Flame Hall didn’t feel like a lecture building at all.
“It’s a workshop. A workshop.”
A blacksmith’s forge, basically a blacksmith shop.
Endless heat.
The sound of hammering iron.
Occasionally, burly figures.
“You learn magic here? Is the professor okay?”
“I dunno.”
Out of all the mages I’ve seen, it’s only Eri, the president, and Bail, so it’s not objective, but this building didn’t seem suited for mages at all.
“Let’s go inside anyway. We’re gonna be late.”
“Ah. Yeah.”
Let’s see.
Room 427.
“It’s unnecessarily high.”
“~♪.”
......
“Aaa! Sorry! Sorry! I saw you sitting on my shoulder and laughing while I climbed the stairs! I’m sorry!”
“Did I do that much?”
Anyway, we made it to room 427.
“...What’s that? Pets aren’t allowed.”
“This is Cecil student. I have my student ID too.”
“Yes. Here it is.”
“Haha... We’ve seen a lot of things, but a freshman with a pet is the first. Confirmed.”
General magic, just like engineering magic, started with a light introduction and hit the core concepts of mana use and magic.
After the lecture ended around 4:20.
“Argh. Tired.”
“?”
“...Hehe. Bail’s lecture ended too. Wanna go check it out?”
“How did you know?”
“You can see schedules when you add friends. I did it earlier.”
Add friends?
“What’s that?”
“......Whoa.”
“Why?”
“I felt like an old man talking to someone my age.”
“No way.”
“Haha. So, Jeden grandpa, what is adding friends?”
The squirrel pulled out a palm-sized stone plate.
“This is an artifact for communication, called a phone.”
“Eh.”
“Press this button...”
“Zing!”
“Eh?”
When the squirrel tapped the upper of the two buttons on the side, light started coming from the stone plate.
“What? Is this a 1st Realm light? No.”
“Haha. This is the screen, grandpa. And if you touch the screen...”
Tic.
“Eh.”
Tic.
What?
It’s doing nothing.
“Ah, haha. It’s supposed to recognize fingers, but with claws it doesn’t work.”
“Give it here.”
“Haha, isn’t it cool? I saved up all my money to buy this.”
I took the phone artifact and tapped the screen with my fingers.
“It’s not working?”
“Because it’s the home screen. Slide your finger.”
At that, I slid my finger across the screen.
“Eh? Where’d it go?”
“It went to the next one. Slide the other way to come back.”
Swish.
“Ooh. The background changed too.”
“That’s because I set it. Anyway. The core of this artifact is connection, right!”
“Connection?”
“What did I say it was?”
“Communication artifact...”
“Yeah. This artifact has a unique identification number assigned at the factory, and if you connect with that number, you can send and receive simple text or hear each other’s voices. You know what a walkie-talkie is? It’s like that.”
“Range limit?”
“Connection is a kind of imprint. As long as there’s mana, it works somehow.”
“...That’s scamming.”
“Haha. Why? Want one? But what do I do! This thing is super expensive! Ehehe!”
An artifact where you can talk to anyone anywhere.
Looking at the squirrel, it seems like there’s more to it than just that.
Good.
Decided. My first goal.