Chapter 067
Chapter Title: An Unexpected Transfer
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That evening.
While the Lumerne students were having dinner in their lodging, a visitor arrived.
“Chelsea! How are we supposed to eat this!”
“You got a problem with my cooking?”
“Cooking? You call this cooking? Please don't insult the art of cooking.”
“What? You're all dead today!”
“Hey, hey! Run! She's using magic!”
“I'm telling Professor Halind everything!”
“Class Rep! Can't you just be on meal duty? Your cooking was the best among us!”
“Should've swiped some party food from Seirun yesterday.”
Before the door opened, a ruckus could be heard from inside the lodging.
As the theme of this field trip was self-sufficiency, the students were in charge of every meal.
Of course, since they had all grown up pampered or lived lives far removed from cooking, it was impossible for a proper meal to emerge.
Thanks to that, every mealtime for the Lumerne students was a continuous uproar like this.
Hearing the disgraceful sounds of the students in charge, Sera covered her face and turned away, while Halind let out a deep sigh.
“Haha! The students are full of energy!”
Only Rune showed a good-natured smile.
“I-I'll go in first and calm them down.”
Sera laughed awkwardly and hurried inside.
A moment later, after things had quieted down, Sera opened the door.
The entire class was eating quietly and elegantly, as if nothing had happened.
“Good to see you all.”
“Hello, Grand Council Chairman Rune!”
The students of Class 5 greeted him politely in unison.
Of course, they didn't forget to keep glancing at Halind.
“Haha. I hope I'm not interrupting your meal. I've come to see you all because I have an announcement.”
“An announcement?”
Karl looked puzzled.
“That's right. You all should be aware. The fact that numerous undead, including a Death Knight, have appeared in the Fairy Forest.”
At his words, everyone's expression turned serious.
“So, the council held a meeting. I'm here to inform you of the results of that meeting.”
The students of Class 5 looked at each other, perplexed.
“The Grand Council of Elsalvekia formally proposes this investigation request to Seirun and Lumerne. We ask that you join forces with Seirun to investigate the unusual situation in the Fairy Forest.”
Hearing this, everyone looked surprised.
“Of course, it's dangerous for you inexperienced students alone. That's why we've put in a request with Seirun. You'll be forming teams with Seirun's upperclassmen to investigate the situation.”
“Does that mean it's an official request?”
“It does.”
An official request.
Lumerne first-years do request practicums starting in their second semester and take on official requests from their second year.
They were now moving that process up by a full year.
“It's called an official request, but keep in mind that it's merely an extension of your practicum. If a situation arises that you can't handle, the request will be immediately suspended. Also, while it's an official request in name, it's essentially an unofficial one, so there's naturally no reward.”
At those words, a few students looked disappointed, but that mood soon vanished.
An official request!
It felt like they were finally being properly acknowledged as students of Lumerne.
“Did you come here yourself just for the request, Grand Council Chairman?”
When Leo asked with a puzzled face, Rune shook his head.
“No. Actually, I came because of you, young Leo.”
“Me?”
“Yes. This child wanted to come and see you.”
Rune smiled brightly and pushed Eiran, who was behind him, forward.
“She's cute!”
“Class Rep! How do you know her?”
The Class 5 students admired the shy and hesitant Eiran.
Leo answered Iliana's question calmly.
“She's Lord Rune's granddaughter.”
“Ooh.”
“L-Lord Leo. Have you been well? You... um, you said I could come visit, so I've taken the liberty...”
“Welcome.”
“You seem close with Leo. Hi, I'm Iliana. Have you eaten? Want to join us?”
“Hey, Iliana. We can't serve this to a guest.”
“Ah. Right. Sorry.”
Iliana and Karl cleared all the food from the table.
Chelsea glared daggers and started strangling Karl and Iliana.
Eiran was extremely flustered by the sight.
The atmosphere was worlds apart from Seirun.
“Have you eaten?”
“Ah, I have not eaten yet.”
“Want some, then? The others are picky eaters and complain, but it's not like it's inedible.”
“Hey! Leo! Don't feed her that! It'll ruin the school's image!”
“Die!”
“Gack! I surrender! Surrender!”
Chelsea began to relentlessly choke only Karl.
“Then, in consideration of your kindness.”
Eiran carefully speared a piece of the meat dish with her fork and ate it.
Eiran, who had been chewing the food thoroughly with small movements of her little mouth, spoke.
“I can feel the effort that went into this food.”
“Right? Right? It's edible, isn't it? They're the weird ones, right?”
Chelsea, who had been choking Karl, ran over with sparkling eyes.
Eiran flinched as Chelsea suddenly approached and acted friendly.
Just then, Rune came closer and smiled kindly.
“Our Eiran is also a Seirun student.”
“Really?”
“But she wasn't in class during the day.”
“Why not?”
“We didn't get to talk much with the Seirun kids earlier because of studying, but I'd like to chat more now that we have the chance!”
The mention of her being a Seirun student raised their interest in Eiran even more.
Seeing the students crowd around her, Eiran's face turned pale.
“E-excuse me for a moment...!”
Eiran shot up from her seat and hastily fled upstairs to escape the crowd.
The Class 5 students were taken aback by this, and Rune's face hardened.
“Aren't you going after her?”
To Leo's question, Rune spoke carefully.
“Young Leo. Would you mind going in my stead?”
“Me?”
“It was thanks to you that my granddaughter, who never leaves her room, found the courage to come out.”
How surprised he had been when his granddaughter, who always stayed cooped up in her room, had come to see him today.
“I, who had only vaguely wished to see her get along with children her age, seem to have failed to fully understand her heart.”
At Rune's words, Halind looked at Leo and nodded.
Leo followed Eiran upstairs.
He noticed the terrace door at the end of the second-floor hallway was open and went outside.
In a corner of the terrace, Eiran was squatting down.
Then she met Leo's eyes and hurriedly said.
“L-Lord Leo. I'm sorry for showing you such a pathetic side of me!”
Staring intently at the apologizing Eiran, Leo recalled a certain elf girl.
*‘Verchia.’*
Even after thousands of years, a fragment of her ancestor remained in Eiran.
And Verchia, too, had been just as gloomy when he first met her.
*‘For some reason, she reminds me of Verchia, so I can't just leave her be.’*
With a bitter smile, Leo draped his outer coat over Eiran.
“B-but won't you be cold, Lord Leo...?”
“Don't worry about me.”
Ignoring the flustered Eiran, Leo put his hands in his pockets and stood beside her, leaning his back against the railing.
“So, why did you run away from Seirun?”
“At first, I wanted to attend Seirun. Because I admired heroes.”
Eiran said, hugging her knees.
When she first enrolled, Eiran was in the intermediate class.
She had talent and worked hard, but Eiran didn't stake her all on honing her swordsmanship and magic.
Eiran simply much preferred reading tales of heroes to fighting.
Eiran, who loved heroes, was content just being in the same space as hero candidates.
However, born into the most prestigious elven family yet content with the present without any goals, Eiran was an easy target for ridicule.
The introverted girl struggled with the mockery.
“When I was finding life at Seirun overwhelming, I met someone like the sun.”
“Who was that?”
“Miss Lunia.”
Eiran's face brightened.
“Miss Lunia is a truly amazing person! There's nothing she can't do! She's always confident! Kind to everyone! She's literally like a hero!”
Eiran's face shone brightly, as if she were recounting a heroic tale.
In a way, Lunia was the person closest to a hero that Eiran had ever met among her peers.
Such a figure was more than enough to capture the heart of a girl who loved heroic tales.
“So I came to admire Miss Lunia. Because she's an amazing person, so different from me... I thought I wanted to follow in her footsteps.”
The small goal of wanting to watch an amazing person up close.
Once she had a goal, her talent blossomed, and in an instant, she left the intermediate class and rose to the advanced class.
“When I got into Advanced Class 1, Miss Lunia treated me very kindly. But... at some point, I became scared of her.”
“Why?”
“I think she started to dislike me after I made a big mistake during a duel evaluation.”
Leo looked like he found that strange.
*‘Given her personality, it doesn't seem like she'd do something to be disliked... and Lunia isn't the type to hate someone over something trivial... I should ask about this.’*
As she grew distant from the object of her admiration, what remained was the envy and jealousy of those she had surpassed.
When Eiran, whom they had clearly considered beneath them, grew to a point where they couldn't even compare, the envy and checks began.
*‘So that eventually became a trauma, making her afraid of her peers?’*
Someone with Leo's personality might have scoffed at it, but Eiran was certainly too soft.
“For someone who's afraid of their peers, you seem pretty comfortable with me.”
“That's because you have a similar feel to my grandfather, Lord Leo!”
“Grandfather?”
Eiran, who had been smiling brightly, was momentarily flustered.
“Ah, no! I don't mean you're old! It's! Uh, you have a mature charm... W-what am I saying!”
Babbling incoherently, Eiran buried her face in her knees, seemingly embarrassed.
Leo, laughing at the sight, asked.
“Did you leave Seirun because you thought that, unlike everyone else, you weren't aiming to be a hero and were just getting in their way?”
“...Yes.”
*‘She's a good kid.’*
The girl lacked the ambition a hero should have.
*‘If she'd given up completely, there's nothing I could do, but.’*
Recalling the clean Seirun uniform in Eiran's room, Leo spoke.
“Do you like the story of Verchia?”
It was a sudden question, but Eiran answered energetically.
“Yes! It's the story of my ancestor! I love it as much as the stories of the Great Heroes!”
“Then you must know. Why Verchia was able to become a great hero.”
“Huh?”
“Verchia became a hero because she admired the Great Heroes who were her mentors and followed in their footsteps, right?”
“...!”
It's not only those with grand dreams who are fit to be heroes.
*‘By that logic, besides Lisinas, none of us are fit to be heroes. No. Luna, Dweno, and I would be disqualified for sure.’*
Thinking of his friends, Leo said.
“Why do you care so much about what others think? You just need to walk the path you want to walk.”
Eiran's eyes widened.
Seeing those eyes, Leo let out a dry laugh.
*‘Different personality, but just like her ancestor.’*
Eyes filled with admiration.
Though she was prickly on the outside, Verchia used to look at Kyle with these same eyes.
When Leo held out his hand, Eiran hesitated for a moment before taking it.
“Let's go down. The Lumerne kids are all good people.”
Led by Leo's hand, Eiran came down to the first floor, where the Class 5 students welcomed her.
“Oh! She's back!”
“Sorry for making you uncomfortable.”
“Nah, maybe she ran away after eating Chelsea's cooking.”
“You little...!”
Chelsea flared up, but held back, afraid of scaring Eiran again.
Eiran, who had been completely flustered by the unfamiliar atmosphere, soon found herself bursting into laughter without realizing it.
Before long, she began to naturally mingle with the other boys and girls her age.
Rune looked deeply moved.
“To think my granddaughter is getting along so well with friends her age!”
“I heard that student Eiran is one of the top five students among Seirun's first-years. Why did she leave the school?”
“Until recently, I thought it was because of a student she couldn't surpass, but that wasn't it. The problem was Seirun's school atmosphere.”
“The school atmosphere?”
“As you know, Seirun offers many benefits to its high-ranking students. The lower-ranking ones are naturally weeded out.”
“It's the same at Lumerne.”
“True. It's unavoidable given the structure of an academy. But that tendency is much stronger at Seirun.”
With the classes themselves being ranked, it couldn't be helped.
“It seems that was a burden for my granddaughter.”
Rune smiled bitterly.
“I attended Seirun and worked as a teacher there, so I never considered it a problem. But it seems the Seirun system just wasn't right for my granddaughter.”
Rune looked at Leo.
*‘I failed to understand Eiran's frightened heart. In that sense, meeting young Leo... was truly a great fortune.’*
Feeling grateful to the human boy who had given his granddaughter courage, Rune wiped away a tear.
Watching Rune, Halind said.
“To climb higher, one must overcome such things. Student Eiran has the skill, so she will be able to overcome it.”
“Yes. But I've just thought of a better way.”
“What way is that?”
“Professor Halind.”
“Yes, Grand Council Chairman.”
As Rune wiped his tears and put on a serious expression, Halind also became serious.
“Does Lumerne, by any chance, accept transfer students?”
Halind let out a deep sigh.
*‘Earlier, Herdium wanted me to transfer Leo to Seirun, now Rune wants to transfer Eiran to Lumerne, Why are so many elves interested in transferring students?’*